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1 






YOUNG ZULU WARRIORS 








BOYS AND GIRLS 
OF MANY LANDS 




BY 

INEZ N.’^cFEE 

Author or “American Heroes from History,” Etc. 

“Little Indian, Sioux or Crow 

Little frosty Eskimo 

Little- Turk or Japanese — ” 

9 j 0 

3 • ^ 




NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




Copyright, 1917, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 


hi^ 

SEP 27 1917 


©C1,A476239 

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PREFACE 


^ There is a fairy-tale of a magic carpet on 

which you need only seat yourself to be trans- 
ported to any country at will. Haven’t you 
wished sometimes that you owned such a carpet ? 
What a fine thing it would be ! 

“ I believe I would like to visit Norway to-day,” 
you might say — and, presto, there before your 
eyes would lay the Land of the Midnight Sun. 
Or, perhaps, you would take a peep at Italy, or 
Africa, or Hawaii. Any pleasant day when you 
didn’t have anything else to do, away you could 
fly to get acquainted with your cousins in other 
lands. 

Now each of us has a fairy gift that is far more 
wonderful than the magic carpet of old. We call 
it the imagination. By its aid we can see places 
on the other side of the globe, and become ac- 
quainted with people whose land we may never 
actually visit in person. We can watch the boys 
and girls in their work and play ; we can see the 
interior of their homes ; and we can almost tell 

what they are thinking about. 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


Let us, then, spread out the fairy rug of fancy 
to-day. Don^t you wish to get aboard ? Then 
come — a merry crowd is waiting — a fair breeze is 
blowing and we shall sail around the world. As 
we pass, we shall wave greetings to the Boys and 
Girls of Many Lands 1 


A WONDROUS JOURNET 

I should like to rise and go 
Where the golden apples grow ; — 

Where below another sky 
Parrot islands anchored lie^ 

Andy watched by cockatoos and goats^ 
Lonely Crusoes building boats ; — 

Where in sunshine reaching out 
Eastern cities, miles about, 

Are with mosque and minaret 
Among sandy gardens set, 

And the rich goods from near and far 
Hang for sale in the bazaar ; — 

Where the Great Wall round China goes. 
And on one side the desert blows. 

And with bell and voice and drum^ 

Cities on the other hum ; — 

Where are forests hot as fire, 

Wide as England, tall as a spire. 

Full of apes and cocoanuts 
And the negro hunters' huts ; — 

Where the knotty crocodile 
Lies and blinks in the Nile, 


V 


A WONDROUS JOURNEY 

And the red flamingo flies 
Hunting flsh before his eyes ; — 

Where in jungles near and far^ 

Man -devouring tigers are^ 

Lying close and giving ear 
Lest the hunt be drawing near^ 

Or a comer-by be seen 
Swinging in a palanquin ; — 

Where among the desert sands 
Some deserted city stands, 

All its children, sweep and prince ^ 

Grown to manhood ages since. 

Not a foot in street or house. 

Not a stir of child or mouse. 

And when kindly falls the night. 

In all the town no spark of light. 

— From Stevenson' s poem Travel'* 


CONTENTS 


A Little African Boy . 

, 

• 

• 

I 

Carl of Australia . 

• 

• 


11 

Our Playmates in Austria 

• 

• 


21 

Juarez, a Lad of the Amazon . 

• 

• 


30 

A Little Maid of Old Quebec 

• 

• 


45 

Boys and Girls in China . 

• 

• 


52 

Juanita Maria San Jose . 

• 

• 


67 

Peter Hebner of Holland 

• 

« 


78 

Two Little Girls of Egypt . 

• 

• 


84 

Jack and Betty in England . 

• 

• 


97 

Thorwald, the Eskimo . 

• 

• 


105 

CoSETTE AND LOUIS OF BrITTANY 

• 

• 


109 

Two Little German Girls 

• 

• 


116 

A Visit to Hawaii . 

• 

• 


125 

Azim, the Hindu Lad 

• 

• 


134 

Little Fox . 

• 

• 


140 

Beppo and Batiste . . • 

• 

• 


150 

Noto San of Japan . 

• 

• 


154 

Little Mexican Twins 

• 

• 


162 

Ole Torkelson 

• 

• 


166 

Darius, a Playmate of Persia 

• 

• 


171 

Our Little Brown Cousins 

• 

• 


181 


vii 


viii 


CONTENTS 


Juan of Porto Rico 194 

A Visit to the Zamarkroff Family . . 200 

Emanuel, a Son of Spain . . . .214 

Two Little P'riends in the Orient • . 222 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Young Zulu Warriors . . {Frontispiece) Page 3 

Tapping a Rubber Tree . . . . . “ 39 

Chinese Boys at Play . . . . . “ 54'^ 

One of Uncle Sam’s Schools . . . . 75 ^ 

A Street in an Egyptian City . . . . 87 

Eskimo Mother and Child . . , . “ 107 w-' 

German School Children . . . . “ 119 . 

Avenue of Royal Palms, Honolulu . . . 127*' 

Hindu Boy with Dog . . . . . 134 

Indian Papooses 141 v 

Beppo and Batiste 153 

Boys’ Kite Festival . . , . . “ 156 

Jacinto and His Burro “ 164 

A Persian Blacksmith Shop , . . . 176*.^ 

Caraboa and Native Cart 183^^ 

Village School in Palestine « . . • “ 222 


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A Little African Boy’ 

We are going to spend a couple of days with 
Tigeris, a little black boy, who lives in the very 
heart of Africa. As you know, Africa is called 
“ The Dark Continent,” and very little is known 
about it. But it is a wonderful land, filled with 
strange animals and queer people. It contains 
the oldest monuments, the greatest desert, and 
the richest diamond mines in the world, but we 
shall see none of these : neither shall we peep into 
Egypt to view the rich valleys of the Nile, or visit 
the Moors in the Barbary States. We shall aim 
to keep away from white people and civilization. 

The little boy we shall visit is the son of a 
savage chief. He knows nothing of civilized 
ways and customs. He never heard of books 
and schools, and he does not even know how old 
he is. But he is a happy little chap, and he and 
his sister Musette have fine times together. Their 

^ From the writer's ** Children of the Southlands f Part 1 1, 
Instructor Literature Series, by permission of the publishers, 
F, A, Owen Co. 


2 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


home is a low hut made of clay thatched with palm 
leaves. There is not a single window, and only 
one narrow door, but then the family only use it 
at night and for shelter when it rains. There is 
a small porch roofed with palm grass and strewn 
with soft mats, which Musette has made. It is a 
fine place to lie and dream while the midday sun 
shines fiercely down. 

Tigeris and Musette wear very few clothes ; 
none at all most of the time. Their skins are soft 
and shiny, like black satin. Every morning they 
take a bath in the river, and lie upon the bank 
until they are dry. They have thick, red lips, and 
their eyes are very round and bright and black. 
Their teeth are white as pearls, but Tigeris has 
spoiled his by having them filed wedge-shaped. 
All the grown-ups in this clan have their teeth 
fixed this way. There are other tribes in Africa 
who think it is the height of fashion and beauty 
to wear their teeth pointed. 

Their father, the great chief, is called a fine 
looking man, but we can hardly keep our faces 
straight when we look at him. He wears no 
clothing but a loin-cloth woven of pineapple 
leaves, and his body is streaked and colored in a 
peculiar fashion with white and yellow chalk. 


A LITTLE AFRICAN BOY 


3 


His beard is braided into tiny braids that stand 
out from his chin like rat tails, and the wool 
sticks out from under his tall grass hat in the 
same queer style. His eyebrows are carefully 
shaved. He wears a string of charms around his 
neck. These are to protect him from enemies, 
for he is a great warrior, and has been chosen 
chief because of his bravery in fighting and his 
skill in hunting. 

He has had many hand to hand fights with 
panthers and gorillas, and more than once has he 
been chased by an angry elephant and won the 
victory. The children honor and fear their father, 
and the dearest wish of Tigeris’ heart is that he 
may grow up to be a great chief like him. 

The boys begin early to train themselves for 
the life of a warrior. They have many mock bat- 
tles in an open field near the village. They rush 
at each other with wooden spears and blunt 
knives, and sometimes the morning passes before 
either side wins the victory. They early learn to 
fish and hunt and bring in game for the family 
meals. 

Tigeris has a narrow, flat-bottomed boat which 
he made all himself from a tree which his father 
cut down for him. It took him many days to 


4 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

make it, for he wanted it to be as nice as possible. 
The paddles are beautifully carved, and the sail is 
made of neatly woven grass. He spends many 
hours sailing along in the shade of the tall trees 
which line the river’s banks. He has great fun 
and seems to care nothing at all for the scores 
of gnats and mosquitoes, which would drive us 
nearly wild and send us home in a hurry. 

But the black boy does not spend all his time 
in play and sport. He has to make war shields 
and spears, and to weave nets for trapping and 
fishing. He must often trudge along many weary 
miles after his father, carrying the extra bows and 
arrows, the lunch basket, etc. He helps his 
mother and sisters to raise the tobacco and pea- 
nuts, and goes with them to catch crabs. But 
this last is a job which he enjoys. It is such fun 
to see the crabs get excited and scuttle around 
showing fight I Tigeris is not the least afraid of 
them. He strikes the crab a good stout blow on 
the back with his heavy hunting knife. This 
stuns it, and in a moment he jerks off its claws 
and thrusts it into a basket. Sometimes the blow 
will not be hard enough, and the crab will rush 
out from his burrow and try to crawl into the 
home of his neighbor. But the neighbor will not 


A LITTLE AFRICAN BOY 


5 


stand for any such hasty ill manners. He pops 
out and the two crabs get into a fight, while 
Tigeris holds his sides and laughs. 

Once Tigeris was rather unwise in the way he 
caught hold of a crab’s claw. It shut up tightly 
around his hand. Tigeris screamed with pain 
and his mother hurried up and cut off the claw 
with her sharp knife. But even then it did not 
let loose from the boy’s hand. He continued 
to scream and was almost faint with pain. His 
mother had to pry off the claw, and bind up the 
bruised hand in soothing leaves. It was several 
days before Tigeris could use it. 

And perhaps you are wondering what became 
of the crab? He hurried away into his quiet, 
dark burrow, and stayed there until a new claw 
grew out to take the place of the old one ! Some 
of the crabs have very beautiful shells of red and 
bright blue, but the gray ones are the best for 
eating. 

Tigeris’ mother is a very good cook. Let us 
drop in at one of their feasts and see what they 
have. Of course the feast is gotten up by all the 
women of the tribe, and it is cooked outdoors, as 
all their cooking is done. First we have turtle 
soup, which is fine. Then there is roast ele- 


6 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

phant’s leg and roast monkey. These were 
cooked in holes in the ground which were first 
heated with stones, then the meat was put in and 
covered with grass and more hot stones, after 
which the hole was filled up with dirt and left 
for about thirty-six hours. So you see even 
the black African savages use fireless cookers ! 
There is broiled buffalo steak and broiled croco- 
dile seasoned with lemon juice and cayenne pep- 
per. We try a little of the buffalo steak and find 
it very good, but we have no stomach for the ele- 
phant, the monkey or the crocodile ! 

And there are some queer side dishes which 
we think best not to look at. The boys and 
girls scoured the forest for them, and* they are 
considered great delicacies by these savages. 
They are frizzled caterpillars, paste of mashed 
ants, and toasted crickets I There is a snake 
stew which the blacks smack their lips over, but 
we pass it by and eat heartily of the many differ- 
ent kinds of fish. There are sweet potatoes, pea- 
nut butter, preserved cocoanut, and “ mountain 
cabbage,’’ the young leaves of the palm, which is 
white and tender and delicious indeed. There is 
some elephant gravy. It is made up largely of 
palm oil and looks very rich. But we do not 


A LITTLE AFRICAN BOY 


7 


care for any. It is passed along down the line 
in the clay kettle in which it was made, and each 
negro dips his manioc bread in it I Manioc bread 
is made from a bulb which looks something like a 
potato. There are no knives, plates, or spoons. 
Every one eats with his fingers. There are some 
cups made of cocoanuts. Every one drinks palm 
wine and the fermented juice of the baobao tree. 
We like the palm wine, for it is sweet and pleas- 
ant and was just made the day before ; but we 
do not touch the other, as it is sour and very 
intoxicating. 

After the feast, the blacks are too '‘stuffed” 
and lazy to move. They lounge about under the 
trees and sleep a good deal. Finally, as twilight 
draws near, some one begins to sing. In a mo- 
ment the grove of banana trees and stately palms 
is filled with rich melody from the beautiful negro 
voices. Everybody sings until they are tired, and 
we listen in delight. Then Tigeris brings out his 
home-made xylophone and treats us to some soft 
sweet music. Soon other instruments appear, 
and we think one big fellow will certainly burst 
his lungs blowing a big ivory horn 1 Then some- 
body sounds the tom-tom, and the woods is alive 
with happy blacks laughing, shouting, singing. 


8 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


and dancing in and out and around under the 
trees, until their breath is gone and they sink upon 
the grass. 

Next morning some of the merrymakers, who 
have over-eaten and tired themselves out gener- 
ally, are too ill to sit up. Every one is greatly 
worried and many charms are worked to rid 
the village of the evil spirits which must have 
crept in. Nothing does any good, however, and 
so the medicine man is sent for. The messenger 
carries presents to him of the best things in the 
village. He is a man of great power. He can 
bring rain and drive away fevers and his hut is 
a sacred place which none of the blacks dare 
enter. He wears metal rings about his body, to 
which are tied funny little packages of snake 
skin with bird feathers sticking out. These are 
charms. Besides the charms, he wears a number 
of little iron bells which clang every time he 
moves. “The doctor” goes through some mys- 
terious motions to drive away the evil spirits and 
hangs a charm, made of hairs from an elephant’s 
tail, around each poor sufferer’s neck. Then, 
having gone through enough “ humbug ” to mys- 
tify the poor people, he uses his knowledge of 
drugs and boils up some herbs to stimulate the 


A LITTLE AFRICAN BOY 


9 


liver, and orders his patients to rest and take 
large doses for several days. Then he goes back 
solemnly to his hut, and the people bow low be- 
fore him as he passes. 

Tigeris says his people were very much disap- 
pointed when they learned who we were. They 
thought we were a band of traders, and were wild 
with joy at the thought of the things they would 
get in trade for their stock of hides, ivory, cocoa- 
nuts, roots, tree bark, and trained parrots. He 
says he is going to get some real music, and goes 
through the motions of playing a violin. His 
mother and sister want some beads and bracelets. 
His father wants a big gun which will “ shoot 
fire.’^ We happen to have a few trinkets with us 
and we distribute them as presents. Among 
them is a small hand mirror. It is a source of 
joy to everybody. The beauties ’’ of the village 
seem never to tire of admiring their fine looks, 
while the children have all sorts of fun making 
faces into it. Tigeris says that the traders hardly 
ever come to their village ; they go to them on 
the coast. 

Just as we are about to leave, some one comes 
into the camp with the report that a great herd of 
elephants is near at hand. Everybody is much 


lo BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


excited and the men quickly get ready to go out 
on a hunt. For a minute we are greatly tempted 
to stay and see the fun. But we have been told 
that elephant hunting is rather a dangerous pas- 
time, also Tigeris has said that his father is daily 
expecting trouble with a savage race near him, 
whose women wear great wooden rings in their 
noses, brass rings in their ears, metal armlets, 
anklets, and bracelets, and whose men are very 
fierce indeed, so we think best to go. 


Carl of Australia 


Carl Campbell’s father owns a sheep ranch 
of several thousand acres not far from Sydney, 
“ the New York of Australia.” Carl himself is a 
bright-eyed little chap, much like his English 
cousins. He belongs to a champion cricket club, 
and he and his sister Zelpha are no end of good 
sport at tennis and croquet. Their home is a 
comfortable white villa, with many large porches, 
in the very center of ‘‘ the station,” as the r^inch 
is called. All about are the homes of the men, 
the warehouses, stores, offices, stables, blacksmith 
and carpenter shops, etc. Indeed, the station is 
quite a village, and we cannot imagine things 
ever being dull here. There is so much to do, 
and so many interesting things to see. 

First of all, there are the sheep — some forty 
thousand of them I They are mostly out on the 
range pastures. These pastures are fenced, so 
that no shepherds are needed ; but there are 
boundary riders, who go the rounds looking after 
the fences and taking care that the sheep have 


12 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


plenty of water and salt. They do not require 
shelter, and live in the fields from one year’s end 
to the other. Mr. Campbell has just bought a 
new flock header, Sir Sylvester, a great ram with 
nearly fifty pounds of wool on him. He cost 
$3,500, and he is certainly a beauty, white as the 
purest snow. His fleece lies in rolls and folds. 
We can hardly find the skin beneath. Indeed if 
it were not for his horns, his nose, and his hoofs, 
we might take him for a big bundle of wool. His 
eyes are so hidden in the long hair about his 
head and ears that they look like mere slits in the 
wool. 

At one of the stables there are a dozen or more 
men shearing sheep by electricity. The power is 
communicated by a tube such as dentists use. 
The shears is made up of several little knives 
fixed in a frame, which is pressed closely against 
the wool. They move back and forth like the 
knives of a mowing machine, and the work is 
done much better and smoother than can be done 
by hand. The sheep wait in pens which com- 
municate by door to each shearer. A man stands 
in the door to pass the victims in and out, and 
there is another man in the pen to round up the 
animals as they are needed. Other men gather 


CARL OF AUSTRALIA 


13 


up the fleeces and sort them into piles ; the tags 
from the legs and tail going into one heap, and 
the fine wool from the sides and underparts of the 
body into another. Fine wool brings twice as 
much as the coarse wool. Most of the common 
sheep yield from six to ten pounds of wool. We 
see at once the value of breeding first-class sheep. 
If Mr. Campbell can get an increase of even one 
pound of wool per animal, he will have 40,000 
more pounds of wool to sell. Sir Sylvester is 
money well invested. The sheep come into the 
shearing pens looking fat and gray ; they are 
snow-white and shrunken when they leave. And 
how greasy the wool is ! The workmen's hands 
shine as though coated with vaseline. 

Australia is a very dry country and effort is 
made to save every drop of water that falls. All 
of the buildings are roofed with galvanized iron 
and piped to iron tanks. Sometimes in various 
sections of the country there are weeks and weeks 
of drouth. The pastures become as dry as the 
road, and thousands of sheep die for lack of 
food and water. Often the poor sheep owners 
become crazed with grief over the sufferings 
of the wretched beasts which they are powerless 
to aid. 


14 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

In the very beginning, Mr. Campbell gives us 
a word of warning : “We have over two hundred 
kinds of lizards,” says he, “ and no end of venom- 
ous snakes. You will have to keep watch where 
you step. Also look closely at the log where you 
are tempted to sit ; it may be an alligator I ” 

We resolve not to get far from a guide, as we 
set out with Carl and some of the men for a great 
emu egg hunt. The emu looks somewhat like 
the ostrich, save that it is not so tall and its body 
is thicker and more clumsy. Its feathers are like 
coarse hair, and are of a dark brown color, spotted 
with gray. The wings are so short as to be al- 
most invisible when held close to the body. The 
sheep men consider the emu an enemy, for it eats 
the grass which the sheep need. So they not 
only shoot them whenever they can, but also hunt 
out their nests and break the eggs. These are 
enormous when compared with hen eggs, but 
they lack a good deal of beings as large as an 
ostrich egg. Egg hunting is sometimes danger- 
ous business. For the emus kick and bite, and a 
blow from the foot of one of them is sufficient to 
kill a man. But we have good horses trained for 
the business, and dogs which know just how to 
grab the birds by the neck so that they cannot 


CARL OF AUSTRALIA 


15 


manage one of their cow-fashion kicks. We lay 
low half a dozen or more birds and break some 
hundred or two eggs. We take home some eggs 
to have the shells mounted in silver as souvenir 
sugar shells. 

Carl says the woods are full of brush turkeys, 
and that there are black swans in nearly all the 
streams. He points out the lyre bird, with its 
curiously shaped tail, and another odd bit of 
feathers called the satin bower bird. This bird 
makes the quaintest home imaginable. It raises 
a sort of platform, sometimes three feet in diam- 
eter, of woven sticks, and builds thereon a dainty 
little bower of sticks and feathers, which it further 
decorates with bones and shells. Here is a 
young satin bower bird. It is bright green 1 
Its father and mother wear shining coats of black 
and brown respectively. 

We see a funny little animal, called the spiny 
ant-eater, slipping shyly out of sight behind a de- 
caying stump. It is the “ hedgehog ” of Aus- 
tralia, and looks much like its American relative, 
save that it has a long snout, and a round, vel- 
vety tongue with a perfect passion for licking up 
ants. The creature lays eggs and puts them in 
its pouch, where they are carried until they hatch. 


i6 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


Another odd little egg-layer is the duck-billed 
platypus — a sort of water mole, about twenty 
inches in length, with soft, thick fur, webbed feet, 
and a bill almost exactly like a duck’s. Its home 
is a tunnel, built far under the stream, with a 
door opening to the land and another to the 
water. It is said to sit upon its eggs as the birds 
do. It feeds upon shell-fish, water insects, beetles 
and roots. 

There are more than one hundred different 
kinds of pouch bearing animals in Australia. 
Carl says he has seen great gray kangaroos, 
more than seven feet in length. And Mr. Camp- 
bell tells us that we had better forget our plans 
for capturing a kangaroo I They are dangerous 
when cornered. One of his men had a narrow 
escape only a few days before, and one of their 
best dogs had been killed. The kangaroo backed 
up at bay against a tree, and when the dog 
sprang upon her, she seized him with her fore- 
paws and held him crushed against her breast 
while she fairly tore him to pieces. The man 
received several ugly gashes from her sharp 
claws, which were as hard as ivory and cut 
like a knife; Red and gray kangaroos are 
hunted in Australia by the thousand, but one 


CARL OF AUSTRALIA 


17 


needs a horse and a dog bred for the business. 
The large kangaroos can leap twenty to thirty 
feet at a jump, and they get over the country at 
a great rate. Water is no bar ; indeed they take 
to it whenever they can. If a dog is unwise 
enough to follow, they seize him and hold his 
head under until he is drowned. Kangaroo skins 
are valuable, especially those of the smaller kinds, 
which are in great demand for bags, shoes, and 
other things. 

Such marvelous trees and plants as we see in 
our rides over the ranch I There are ferns so tall 
and stocky that we climb them just for the fun of 
it. There are nettles almost as high as the ferns, 
and we speedily learn to watch for their stinging 
light green leaves and give them as wide a berth 
as possible. There are palm trees and ever- 
greens matted together into a jungle. We have 
to cut our way through them in places, and our 
eyes fairly bulge in the strict watch we keep for 
venomous ants, lizards, and snakes. There are 
gigantic blue gum trees, three hundred feet tall 
and six feet in diameter. Everywhere are the 
most wonderful flowering plants. We see all 
sorts and shapes of beautiful orchid bloom and 
gorgeous dark red lilies. There is a strange tree 


i8 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


that looks like a stump all sprouted with coarse 
spiny grass. It is called the grass tree. The 
bottle tree is shaped like a great bottle, with 
branches and leaves growing out of the cork. 

We go with Carl and Mr. Campbell on a little 
trip into the neighboring province of Queensland. 
Here we have the rare good luck to chance upon 
a camp of the Australian aborigines, who have 
drifted down from their homes farther north. 
We are a little bit frightened, but Mr. Campbell 
assures us that we are perfectly safe. He says 
these people think the white settlers are natives 
who have died and been born again. They think 
that they themselves will come back to earth in 
white skins ! Surely it would be a wondrous 
transformation I They are the oddest-looking 
people imaginable. They are built something 
like the negro, but there the resemblance ends, 
for their skin is brown and they do not have the 
woolly hair, nor the thick lips and flat noses of the 
African. What fierce stubby black beards the 
men have, and there is long bristly hair on their 
chests, legs and arms I The children are quite 
naked, and a good many of the men and women 
wear precious little but a coat of fish oil and a 
little paint. Their homes are mere pup tents of 


CARL OF AUSTRALIA 19 

skins, and are seldom used excepting in bad 
weather. 

What is that ugly-looking weapon so many of 
them are carrying? It is a boomerang. They 
are used more for playthings than for fighting. 
They look something like a curved grass scythe, 
only they are made of wood. The men throw 
them so skillfully that they strike what they are 
aimed at and return to the throwers. 

Mr. Campbell says there are many odd tribes 
of wild men along the northern coast. Some of 
them pierce their noses, just under the nostril, 
and thrust in a nose pin about ten inches in 
length ; others pierce their ears, and stick in an 
ornament of kangaroo bones. Some tribes wear 
little fringed turbans, others deck themselves with 
wild-looking feather head-dresses, and still others 
tie the knuckle bones and teeth of kangaroos to 
their forelocks and allow them to dangle down 
over the forehead. Some of them have their 
bodies “ ornamented ” with great black-ridged 
scars. These are made by hacking the flesh 
with sharp shells, and dusting charcoal onto 
the wound. The braver and more exalted the 
man, the more scars he has ! Some of the great 
chiefs are fairly covered with the hideous things. 


20 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


We must take care how we act if we meet any of 
these wild people, but we are not likely to do so 
as they keep to themselves in their out-of-the-way 
homes. 


Our Playmates in Austria 

Suppose we hie ourselves over to Austria to- 
day, to the delightful valley of the Eggen-Tal in 
South Tyrol. There are some very interesting 
playmates here, and we shall have a happy time. 
But, before we start, let us glance for a moment 
at the map of Europe. You have probably 
noticed that the outline of Italy is shaped like 
a hunting boot. Tyrol juts out from the main 
body of Austria and forms a strap or ** lobe ” to 
the boot. It is a beautiful little country, almost 
in the heart of the Alps, with long, narrow val- 
leys, picturesque lakes, and great rocky crags 
crowned by ancient castles. It stands from i,8oo 
to 9,400 feet above sea-level, and there is no spot 
in all the world more famous as a resort for pleas- 
ure-seeking and health-seeking people. 

The entrance to the Eggen-Tal is through a 
picturesque old fortified gateway of stone and 
masonry, with tiled towers and turrets, and vine- 
grown walls. We gaze about in admiration, 
drinking in the splendid mountain air, which 


21 


22 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


surely rivals the long-sought “Fountain of 
Youth.” Not far away is the great castle Schloss 
Karneid, 1,525 feet above the valley, on a crag so 
steep that a road up it is impossible. The in- 
habitants reach it on their own feet, with the aid 
of their stout, trusty staffs. And to them the 
stiff climb presents no difficulty. For nowhere 
is there a heartier, sturdier people than those of 
Austrian Tyrol. 

Other castles dot the crags as far as eye can 
reach, and the road stretches away like a path 
through fairyland. Now it hugs closely against 
the great cliffs shining with their many-hued 
crystals of quartz and feldspar ; again it crosses 
terraces in the cliff, or is carried upon arches ; 
now it tunnels through a spur, and again it leaps 
a silvery waterfall to avoid one. It climbs where 
it can, turns abruptly where it must, and is sel- 
dom wide enough for more than one team, save 
at the “ turn outs.” It is customary to shout and 
crack the whip at the never-ending turns and 
tunnels. At first we are much dismayed, even 
frightened, at the racket, but we soon learn what 
to expect. 

And certainly never was there a road less 
lonely I The scenery is the loveliest imaginable, 


OUR PLAYMATES IN AUSTRIA 23 

and we are continually meeting carriage-loads of 
tourists and people of every color and nation on 
foot. Yonder comes an omnibus, and a little far- 
ther on is a great team of milk-white oxen, draw- 
ing a heavy load of timber. How fat the beasts 
are I How sleek their well-groomed sides I Evi- 
dently their peasant driver takes great care of 
them, and is well-pleased at our admiration, 
which is not all for the oxen. Look at the man 
himself I How strong and erect he is I Look at 
his broad shoulders, his shrewd, kindly eyes and 
his seamed face — for he is not a young man. 
There are, alas ! few young men in this section 
now. — Outdoor life, simple tastes, and wants that 
are few, bring long years and serene old age to 
the Tyrolese. Notice the man’s apron ! All the 
Tyrol peasants wear aprons ; so, too, do the 
women and children. 

Over here on the right men, women, and chil- 
dren are working in the wheat harvest. What 
would these people think of such work as car- 
ried on in the great wheat fields of Canada 
and our own Northwest? We wonder, as we 
watch them. For in Austrian Tyrol agriculture 
is carried on just as though the era of farm ma- 
chinery had never yet dawned ! The grain is cut 


24 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

with a small curved hand-sickle, and laboriously 
carried away to be trodden out by oxen on the 
threshing floor. 

Notice the dress of the women : dark full skirts 
and aprons, bodices of faded velvet (Sunday hand- 
downs), and short very full white sleeves. Most 
of them have kerchiefs knotted about the neck. 
The head-gear varies from hats of every descrip- 
tion to loosely knotted scarfs and kerchiefs. And 
the women themselves : They are short, sturdy 
and well-preserved. Nor are they “ tired to 
death” as we would be should we attempt like 
labor in the fields. See that young woman com- 
ing toward us I Did you ever meet a more 
bright- eyed, rosy-cheeked maiden ? And that 
young miss of twelve or thirteen : How many of 
our girls would just “give their eye teeth” for 
two such magnificent braids of hair as frame her 
happy, laughing face 1 

Isn’t that a village on down at the bend in the 
road? Let us hasten. It is long past the hour 
for lunch, but possibly we can get a bite at the 
inn. It is a hope that presently seems doomed to 
disappointment. For there is not a soul in sight ; 
the whole town is apparently deserted. “ Gone 
to the harvest fields 1 ” we exclaim, ruefully. But 


OUR PLAYMATES IN AUSTRIA 25 

no ; here comes a man. It is a priest, telling his 
beads. “ How can he serve us ? But certainly ; 
old Carlotta is no doubt taking an afternoon 
siesta^ He will call her and our wants shall 
soon be supplied I 

Hard upon this gratifying assurance comes a 
merry shout, followed by gay whoops of laughter, 
and the children of the place — those too young to 
work in the fields — burst upon us from their hid- 
ing-places. (We have broken up a great game 
of Seek-and-Find.) “ Here is Philippe, Marie 
Antoinette, Louise Therese, Peter, Rudolph, Jo- 
anna Mary, Maximilian, Frederick, Lorraine Au- 
gusta, Matthias, and little Victoria Elizabeth,” 
enumerates the good priest, presenting them 
proudly. And with good reason ! Never were 
brighter eyes, sturdier limbs, or more rugged 
countenances banded together I The boys are a 
trifle bashful, but the girls sweep us graceful, old- 
fashioned courtesies, and little Victoria Elizabeth 
is so droll and roguish that we want to hug her 
good and hard. But we fear we might frighten 
her. 

Shall we be able to talk with them? We ven- 
ture a question in German. 

Si, signora, si,” cries Marie Antoinette hap- 


26 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


pily, but with an unmistakable soft Italian slur, 
“ we speak the German, but Italian is our mother- 
tongue ; the German, he is a step-mother.” 

The priest makes haste to explain : “ Austria is 
a nation of many races and languages. But Ger- 
man is taught in the schools, and all the people 
are able to use that tongue if they will. Even in 
the small province of Tyrol we are divided ; we of 
South Tyrol seem naturally to prefer the speech 
and the ways of our Italian neighbors, while 
North Tyrol is quite German in everything. 
About forty-five per cent, of the people of Austria 
are Slavs, and they, as you may know, differ 
greatly among themselves in languages and civ- 
ilization.” 

After lunch we have a joyous game of cross- 
tag with the children, and then we teach them to 
play Prisoner’s Base ” in thorough American 
fashion. Priest and pupil escort us to the school, 
and we are surprised to see how thorough is the 
course in languages, manual training and music. 
Children are required by law to attend school 
from their sixth to the end of their twelfth year. 
Some of the larger towns have high schools 
where young people of thirteen to fifteen must 
attend. There are eleven universities in Austria, 


OUR PLAYMATES IN AUSTRIA 27 

the priest says. He is himself a graduate of 
Prague, one of the oldest universities in Europe. 

Back at the inn the girls bring us their home- 
made dollies, their knitting and weaving ; and the 
boys proudly exhibit tops, kites, bird houses, bow 
and arrows, etc., mostly of their own and their 
older brothers^ make. Rudolph and his sister 
Louise Therese kindly dress in their Sunday best, 
so that we may get a photograph of Tyrolese 
children in costume. How do you like their 
looks ? 

Quite suddenly the bell in the little church near 
at hand begins to peal joyously, and one of the 
girls starts up in surprise. “ Father Felician,” 
she calls excitedly, and then pauses, for the other 
children are laughing gayly, and the old priest is 
nowhere to be seen. 

“Stupid,^’ reproves her brother, with his fore- 
finger to his forehead in mocking significance, 
“ see the lengthening shadows ! 'Tis Evening 
Tide.^' 

And then we understand. The bell is to call 
home the laborers. 

“Come,” cries Marie Antoinette, delightedly. 
“ We will meet them at the Shrine of the Boun- 
teous Harvest,” 


28 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


So we set out happily, and presently the incom- 
ing workers are in sight. What a gay line of life 
and color they present ! The girls in their bright- 
colored dresses, their hats dangling at their sides, 
their arms entwined schoolgirl fashion ; the boys 
leaping, racing, and wrestling helter-skelter ; the 
men and women in laughing groups, or in more 
sober twos and threes ; the couples of sweethearts 
straggling along at the rear, in no hurry whatever 
to reach the village. 

At length the Shrine of the Bounteous Harvest 
is reached. This is a board cross, with the image 
of a beautiful maiden blessing the wheat fields 
painted upon it. It stands in a little plot of sacred 
ground, surrounded by a riotous mass of lovely 
flowers, and protected by a pretty rustic fence. 
The simple peasants hold it in reverence, and 
never fail to pass it with a prayer in their hearts. 
To-day there is an involuntary pausing, two maid- 
ens step forward and crown the figure with rich 
garlands of wheat, some one begins a sacred 
hymn, which soon thrills and throbs with grateful 
feeling. For religion is deeply felt and very real 
to these people. There are shrines of this and 
similar nature along all the roads and byways in 
the Tyrol. 


OUR PLAYMATES IN AUSTRIA 29 


Such a cordial greeting as we receive at the 
close of the little service I It makes us feel quite 
at home with these kindly people of the soil. 
Later, a simple supper is served for us at the inn, 
and afterward all the village gathers upon the 
green. There are stories, music, and merriment 
generally. Suddenly some one begins to whistle 
a riotous waltz and in a twinkling the soft turf is 
filled with happy dancers — boys and girls, young 
and old, mingling together in hearty care-free 
fashion. 


Juarez, a Lad of the Amazon 

Juarez Braganza lives about a day’s journey 
up the Amazon. We might fly straight to his 
home on the wings of fancy, but don’t you think 
it will be more interesting to take the steamer at 
Para, at the very mouth of this great King of 
Rivers ? And, while we are about it, we may as 
well take a peep at Para I For the Braganzas 
live on a rubber plantation, and we shall have no 
opportunity there to learn about city life in trop- 
ical Brazil. 

Para is a gay city of blue, yellow, and green 
porcelain . tiles. The tall, flat-chested business 
houses crowd close together along the narrow 
streets, and everywhere the shops overflow on the 
sidewalk. We see some lovely homes in the resi- 
dence section, and the most beautiful parks, filled 
with palms and other tropical trees, and overflow- 
ing with children and nurse girls. The babies 
are quite naked, and the boys and girls are not 
overburdened with clothes. Indeed yonder is a 
little chap without a stitch on him, galloping 
wildly on a stick horse. A negress in a beautiful 

30 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 31 

silk dress pauses to speak with him. There is a 
little tot of two or three summers with her, whose 
only garment is a filmy shawl or scarf of silk. 
Everywhere there are vultures. These are the 
scavengers of the Amazon, and the people would 
not think of killing one of them. They hover 
about watching eagerly for every morsel that is 
thrown away. We could pick one up easily, but 
they are such disgusting creatures that we prefer 
to give them a wide berth. 

Here comes a man with an odd-looking thing, 
about the size of a wash-tub and a foot thick, on 
his head. It is a turtle lying on its back. See 
how it pokes its head in and out of the shell I 
Turtles are found in countless numbers all along 
the Amazon. They have their breeding places, 
where at certain seasons they go and lay their 
eggs in holes which they dig in the sand. The 
eggs are about the size of hen eggs, with a 
leathery skin instead of a shell. Each turtle lays 
about one hundred and twenty eggs, and often 
millions and millions of them are deposited in one 
of the laying places. The people go in crowds 
and dig them out by the canoe full to make turtle 
oil. It is a messy business I The eggs are 
pounded to a jelly with sticks, or perhaps tramped 


32 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

up with the feet. Water is then poured into the 
mixture, and it is allowed to stand in the sun. 
Soon the oil comes to the surface. It is skimmed 
off and purified by boiling in a copper kettle. It 
is used for burning and sometimes for cooking. 
Thousands of little turtles are captured at the egg 
hunts. These are sold in strings of a dozen each, 
and we are told they are a delicacy when roasted. 

In the market streets are scores of gayly 
dressed negro women peddling all sorts of things. 
Here are great stacks of bananas and oranges, so 
delicious that they fairly melt in one’s mouth. 
Cocoanuts and pineapples may be bought for a 
few cents. Yonder is a great pile of baskets 
which have just been brought in from one of the 
river boats. See, there come men and boys 
with more of them on their heads 1 They remind 
us of the peach baskets at home, and are lined 
and covered with green palm leaves. How eager 
the people seem to get them 1 They rush up and 
buy a basket and hasten away with it on their 
heads. Let us look into one. Humph ! Only a 
coarse white meal, which looks something like 
sawdust and tastes like ground pop-corn I It is 
manioc flour, — the staple breadstuff of Brazil. 
We are told that it is very nutritious. And, in- 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 33 

deed, we know that it is, for we eat a great deal 
of it ourselves in the shape of tapioca. 

Here is a country lad with some tame parrots 
for sale. They are beautiful birds of an odd 
shade of greenish-blue, with a tinge of red on 
the wings and neck. They are cheap enough — 
two dollars apiece. But alas ! they speak Portu- 
guese. This is the language of Brazil. It 
sounds much like Spanish, but it is not so 
musical on account of a certain harsh twang. 
Shall we buy a pair of the birds and try our hand 
at teaching them to speak American ? Pedro as- 
sures us by every sign at his command that they 
are docile birds and learn readily. 

The streets are thronged with all nations and 
colors of people. Italian fruit and vegetable 
peddlers, with their tempting baskets balanced 
by means of a long pole across their shoulders, 
are everywhere. So, too, are the scantily clad 
negro porters. Step aside. Here comes a half- 
dozen of these burly porters, swinging along with 
a great object on their heads. It is a piano! 
My word 1 

Here is an odd little brown chap with a basket 
of fish on his head. Yonder is a lad selling 
onions. They are braided together by the stems, 


34 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

and he sells them at so much per foot or yard. 
There is a big negress with a crate of poultry. 
How in the world does she manage to balance it 
on her head ? Her hands seldom touch it. And 
here is the queerest character of them all I He 
stops before a house and claps a couple of sticks 
together. They are pieces of a yard-stick, and 
he is a cloth merchant. See how smilingly the 
lady receives him I She had rather buy of him 
than go to the store. 

Here is a dusky, olive-skinned little maid cry- 
ing her heart out because a rascally street gamin 
has snatched a bag of beans from her and made 
off with it. “We shall have nothing for sup- 
per I ” she wails, as we try to comfort her. 'Tis 
a trouble soon mended. With our arms filled 
from the baskets of fish and fruit venders, we go 
with her to the single room that is the home of 
her father and mother and nine children. It is in 
a dark corner of an ill-smelling basement. Our 
approach is noted by a score of dirty little urchins 
who scurry to cover, and peer out from behind 
the scanty skirts of their worn mothers. 

“ Why are you not at school. Carmen ? ” ^ we 
ask by way of conversation. 

1 A name very common among the girls of Brazil. 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 35 

“ Please, I am called Josefa,” says the little 
maid. “ And there are so many babies, and 
mother is ill.’^ Reasons a-plenty I Fresia crows 
and gurgles from her walled soap-box retreat. 
She is a dear little thing, all curls and dimples, 
and, after a bath, would charm the heart of any 
lover of babies. Bernardo wabbles about on 
bandy little legs, led by Delfina, only a notch 
taller. Pablito sobs in the corner. He fell into 
an open sewer awhile ago, and is not yet dry and 
presentable. Jose, Raquel, and Rosita work in a 
factory. Dominique is a street urchin who is 
seldom home in daylight hours. The father is a 
poorly-paid bricklayer. The family would have 
starved long ago but for the ash cakes which the 
mother and Josefa make to sell among the factory 
employees. 

There is but little furniture in the room — a 
small table, some rough willow chairs with 
twisted straw seats. The beds are hammocks, 
now hanging limp against the wall. At night 
they must fill the room. The cooking is done on 
a charcoal brazier. Supper is a simple meal of 
soup and dry bread ; breakfast is a baker’s roll 
and a cup of coffee, without milk or sugar ; 
dinner is a steaming stew of some kind and a 


36 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

kettle of boiled beans. There are no plates. 
The family gathers about the principal dish and 
dips in with their spoon, or sop of bread. We do 
not stay long. There is little we can do for this 
humble family, who are, alas I many degrees 
above some of the tenement people we see. 

What a contrast there is between these homes 
and that of Hidalgo and Carmenlita Narino, where 
we are asked to lunch 1 Their father is one of the 
richest Brazilians in Rio, and seldom have we 
been in a more luxurious, refined home. Senora 
Narino is a beautiful brunette, and a most charm- 
ing hostess. She and her elder daughter, Senorita 
Juliet, spare no pains to make our visit pleasant. 
They are warmly seconded by the children and 
their governess. The house is handsomely fur- 
nished with richly carved, imported furniture. 
There are expensive musical instruments and a 
large, well-selected library. The table shines 
with cut glass and silver. There is a French chef 
in the kitchen. After lunch we have a refreshing 
siesta, and then enjoy a little chat with our hostess 
and the dreamy-eyed youngsters on the wide ve- 
randa of the inner court. How restful it is here, 
with the musical fountain splashing among bowers 
of jasmine and roses ! 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 37 

‘‘We Americans should know one another bet- 
ter,” says Hidalgo graciously, as we rise to go. 
“ I mean to see your country some day.” 

We hasten at once to the wharves, and are soon 
in our hammocks on the deck of the steamer and 
off up the river. Such a wondrous journey ! 
There are miles of forest wall at least a hundred 
feet high. Great palms stand side by side with 
trees not unlike those in our forests at home. 
Everywhere are hundreds of air plants, feathery 
creepers hanging in garlands and festoons. Yon- 
der is a dead limb wreathed with orchids. Here 
is a tree whose top is a great mass of violet bloom. 
Others are loaded with bunches of white, yellow, 
and purple. Over here is a tree bursting with 
flowers much like the tiger lily. Most of the trees 
have a whitish-gray bark. Some of the trunks 
are “so twisted and ribbed that they look like 
mighty cables of white taffy.” Sometimes we 
steam along close to the shore, again we are so 
far out that the trees seem only a faint line on 
either side. Here and there, in a small clearing, 
is the rude thatched hut of a rubber gatherer. 
Seldom is it over fifteen feet square. The win- 
dows are mere holes in the wall. Each hut has 
its boat tied to the shore. For there are no roads 


38 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

through the forest; in many places the mat of 
vines is so thick that one could hardly cut through 
them. All travel is by water. 

What is that tree towering high above the 
others ? What magnificent dark-green foliage I 
Wouldn’t it be fine if we had one on the lawn at 
home ? It is a Brazil nut tree. But look at the 
fruit. It is shaped like a walnut, but as large 
around as the largest baseball. Surely that is 
not the kind of Brazil nut we buy in the stores ! 
But wait, let us remove the thick outer shell. In- 
side is another hard shell, and this on being 
opened yields up about twenty of the familiar 
long, wedge-shaped Brazil nuts. Talk about 
treasure boxes ! We meet no end of boat loads 
of them. And later, when we get off at Bra- 
ganza’s landing, we tremble lest the monkeys dash 
some of the nuts down on our heads. For the 
trees are thick all about and the nuts are quite 
heavy. 

Where are the rubber forests? We thought 
this part of the country was full of them, and sug- 
gest as much to the captain. He laughs good- 
naturedly. There are no such things,” he tells 
us earnestly. “ Nature has seen fit to scatter her 
rubber trees, and so far few men have thought it 



© Everyland 


TAPPING A RUBBER TREE 





• ^ * •.% T •• '■. ^* ♦ ■ *• ^ ■ J| 





* 



JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 39 

worth while to set out plantations. It takes from 
fifteen to twenty years for a tree to come into 
bearing; so the natives prefer to tap the wild 
trees. Most of the so-called rubber plantations 
are nothing more than forest enclosures, with the 
trees scattered hit or miss here and yonder. 
There is a rubber tree now — that tall tree with 
the thick trunk and smooth whitish bark.’* 

It looks very much like the English ash. High 
up the trunk gleams like silver. Lower down it 
is scarred and black and warty — the marks of the 
rubber gatherer’s tomahawk. In the distance we 
see the shining arms of another great rubber tree. 
And yonder is another 1 How easy they are to 
recognize, now that we know them. They belong 
to the Braganza plantation we are told, and here 
we are at the landing! It is a little wharf of wood 
extending from the warehouse out into the river. 
To the right is the Braganza dwelling, a low cot- 
tage with a red tiled roof and a wide veranda. 
Juarez rushes down the steps to greet us, and 
though he speaks in Portuguese, we are very sure 
of our welcome. 

We have dinner almost immediately — a satis- 
fying meal of roast chicken, fish, beans, stewed 
onions, pumpkin butter, manioc pudding with 


40 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

chocolate sauce, baked bananas, pineapple salad, 
oranges, nuts, and coffee. Afterward we are too 
tired, and too much at peace with all the world, 
to do anything but sling our hammocks under 
the trees and crawl into them. How bright the 
moon is way off down here in the tropics! How 
the monkeys chatter 1 Do they ever sleep ? we 
wonder. And then all at once the sun is shining 
in our faces, Juarez is calling, and we start up 
eager to make the rounds with the rubber gath- 
erers. 

A rubber plantation is measured by the number 
of paths it contains. Senor Braganza’s has some- 
thing like two hundred, with an average of 
seventy-five to one hundred and fifty trees each, 
depending upon their distance apart. Each path 
has its own rubber gatherer. We set out with 
one of these, a sturdy negro, who is armed with a 
sharp hatchet or tomahawk, having a blade about 
an inch wide, and a number of small tin cups. 
But he goes too slow, and we race on ahead with 
Juarez. At the first tree, he takes out his knife 
and digs into one of the little yellow, waxy lumps 
which dots the trunk. We do likewise, and soon 
we are having fine sport seeing who can stretch 
his thread of rubber the farthest before it breaks. 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 41 

Then Antonio arrives. He makes a quick gash 
in the tree bark, taking care not to cut into the 
wood beneath. As he withdraws the tomahawk, 
a thin white fluid follows the blade. It looks 
much like the juice of milkweed and has a sweet- 
ish taste. One big thick drop slowly follows an- 
other, and the man fastens a tin cup to collect the 
fluid. He makes two or three more gashes, fits a 
cup to each and then goes on to the next tree. 
We follow after, thinking the business rather 
tame after all, when all at once there is a noise 
like the explosion of a toy pistol and we are pep- 
pered with seeds. At first we think it is some 
monkey’s doings, but Juarez says it is only a 
rubber shell that has burst. The fruit is enclosed 
in a round, green prickly husk, like the horse- 
chestnut, and when they are ripe the seeds burst 
out in a great flurry, often lighting some distance 
from the tree. 

Antonio will come back about noon, Juarez 
says, to empty the cups. We decide to wait for 
him and explore a very little on our own account. 
No danger of our wandering far in the tangled 
mass of vines and creepers ! There are every 
shade and variety of parrots and humming-birds, 
and an odd-looking red and blue bird with a 


42 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

hooked bill, called a toucan. A white deer flits 
across the path, and we rouse up a peccary or 
wild boar asleep in the tangle. Fortunately it is 
as frightened as we are and we do not have any 
trouble. Juarez says they are fierce indeed when 
attacked. Another curious four-legged furry crea- 
ture, with a long, slender snout and a bushy tail, 
slips into the creepers. It is an ant-eater. There 
are giant redwoods, the famous hard- wood trees 
of Brazil, which are almost indestructible. Here, 
too, is the carnauba palm, which is said to be 
more useful than any other tree in the world. 
The straw-like bark of the tree is used for thatch- 
ing houses and for making baskets, brooms, and 
hats. The pith is as light as cork and serves a 
variety of purposes. Musical instruments are 
made from the wood of the stem. Wax for can- 
dle making is obtained from the leaves. When 
tapped, the tree gives off a white liquid similar 
to the milk of a cocoanut. The roots furnish a 
medicine like sarsaparilla. The young trees are 
used as a vegetable, and from them wine and 
vinegar, a kind of sugar, and a starch resembling 
sago, are made. 

Only a few tablespoonfuls flow from a rubber 
wound in a day, so Antonio has less than two 


JUAREZ, A LAD OF THE AMAZON 43 


quarts of “milk” when he gets back. Senor 
Braganza is very particular about how the rubber 
is handled, and each man is required to cure his 
product as soon as he comes in. This is an inter- 
esting operation. Antonio goes at once to the 
curing shed and pours his milk into a large bowl. 
Then he builds a fire of palm nuts under a curi- 
ous little clay chimney in one corner of the hut. 
How fiercely the nuts burn I Soon a dense 
smoke is pouring out of the top of the chimney, 
which is not more than waist high. Antonio dips 
his paddle into the milk and thrusts it into the 
thickest of the smoke, turning it swiftly all the 
time so that not a drop of the precious liquid may 
be wasted. In a twinkling, the rubber turns into 
a thick, brown-streaked mass, coating the paddle 
like varnish. Again and again the paddle is 
dipped and smoked until the milk is all gone, 
and Antonio holds in his hands a mass of rubber 
resembling a six pound ham, with a stick thrust 
into it. A quick gash in one side and the paddle 
is withdrawn, ready for use on the morrow. Then 
the “ ham ” is taken to the warehouse, where it is 
carefully inspected and placed with a great pile 
of other rubber hams waiting to be shipped. 
Juarez says these will be rigidly examined at the 


44 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

Para warehouse by the buyers, who always cut 
the hams in two to make certain that they are 
pure rubber all the way through. How carefully 
the workmen handle the hams! Juarez shows us 
what happens if they do not. He picks up a ham 
and throws it roughly down. It bounces and 
rolls about as though possessed, and gives us a 
lively chase and a good wetting. For we do not 
get hold of it till it finally bounces into the river I 
Juarez has never been to school. He is not 
much interested in “ book learning.” He can 
write his name fairly well in Portuguese. His 
father has taught him how to do simple sums, so 
that he may be able to carry on the rubber busi- 
ness. The most of the time Juarez is free as the 
air. Sometimes his cousins from Para come out 
and they have good times together, but usually 
Juarez has to amuse himself. He is a skillful 
player on the guitar, and sits curled up in his 
hammock by the hour, playing sweet, weird 
music. Hammocks are about the only “ chairs ” 
used at the Braganzas. In them one feels quite 
safe from the numerous bugs, ants, and snakes 
that are continually wriggling about in unsus- 
pected places. 


A Little Maid of Old Quebec 

Little Fanny Fly-away lives in Old Que- 
bee. Of course that is not her real name. On 
the register in the big family Bible she is re- 
corded as Frances Bell Lennox. But Uncle 
Louis insists on calling her Fanny Fly-away, 
and so Fanny Fly-away she is and has been ever 
since Christmas night four years ago. You see 
Fanny loved to skate, and so Uncle Louis gave 
her a pair of the most beautiful silver-trimmed 
skates for Christmas. Fanny was delighted with 
them, but no one thought she would venture 
down to the big river alone with them. How- 
ever, that is just what she did. Mother and 
Aunt Kate were very busy ; Doctor Lennox had 
been called to see a very sick patient ; Uncle 
Louis was off up the river with a skating party. 
Perhaps Fanny thought she would meet him. 
Anyway she slipped away about four o^clock, 
and no one saw her go. 

The river was deserted and Fanny was a bit 
dismayed at first, but the ice was fine and never 
45 


46 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

did new skates skim along more merrily. Fanny 
felt as light and happy as a bird, and away she 
flew. Nor did she pause for breath for ever so 
long. Then, with a little frightened cry, she 
turned about. Quebec was nowhere in sight, it 
was beginning to grow dark, and the snow was 
falling thick and fast. To make matters worse, 
Fanny suddenly realized that she was very tired. 
And mercy, how the wind was blowing I It was 
difficult to face it and keep her feet. Whatever 
had made her come so far, and what would father 
say ? Tears dimmed the brown eyes, but Fanny 
was brave. She wrapped her scarf more firmly 
and plunged resolutely into the gale. Every mo- 
ment the skating became more difficult. Pres- 
ently she saw that she would have to take off her 
skates and get on as best she could on foot. She 
sat down wearily, leaning her head on her hand. 
How tired she was I Was that the stars, or could 
she really see the lights of the city away in the 
distance ? Anyway, she must rest a moment. 

The next thing Fanny knew she was on the 
couch in the living-room. Mother and Aunt 
Kate were chafing her cold hands and feet, 
Uncle Louis held her head, and father was try- 
ing to force a hot cordial down her throat. 


A LITTLE MAID OF OLD QUEBEC 47 

“ Well, Fanny Fly-away,” said Uncle Louis 
huskily, “ I think Til confiscate those skates I ” 

“ The skates were not to blame ! ” stammered 
Fanny, rousing at once to their defense. And 
so she kept the skates, and the name of Fanny 
Fly-away, too. 

She and her cousins have the most delightful 
times in winter ; skating, skimming here and 
yonder over the river in ice boats, horse racing 
on the ice, and what not. They laugh at storms 
which would paralyze us. No cold seems fierce 
enough to check their spirits. How could it? 
They are wrapped so snugly in the heavy furs, 
fashioned by Nature for the animals of the North. 

Often they get up a snow-shoe party and go 
hiking across the white fields to Montmorenci 
Falls. Here the Montmorenci River leaps boldly 
over a precipice two hundred feet high, in its 
eagerness to join the St. Lawrence. In summer, 
the falls are a misty veil, light as the clouds 
above them. In winter, they are frozen, often 
in a single night, into a snow-white toboggan 
slide. What sport they furnish I Just imagine 
a breathless glide down the icy slope I People 
come out in crowds from Quebec nearly every 
day. 


48 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

Uncle Louis is a member of the Tandem Club. 
He often takes Fanny Fly-away for a spin around 
the club tracks. What fun it is to go whirling 
along in the luxurious sleigh over the crisp, 
white thoroughfares I None of the horses are 
more swift than Dan, Kathleen, and Lady Bird. 
And Fanny Fly-away has a reckless fashion of 
whispering “ Faster ! faster I ” in a little breath- 
less way, which makes her uncle laugh delight- 
edly and hug her close. 

Fanny Fly-away has an old trapper friend, John 
LeClaire. And the tales he tells ! They make 
one long for camping outfits and canoes. Think 
of moose four feet wide between the antlers I Of 
caribou, bear, lynx, sable, minx and beaver ! To 
say nothing of trout and all kinds of wild fowl ! 
Surely, parts of Canada, at least, are the ideal 
“ Happy Hunting Grounds.’' 

In summer, the Lenoxes go down the river to 
their country place, not far from Ste. Anne de 
Beaupre. This old town is known far and wide 
for the marvelous cures which have been made in 
a famous Catholic church here. And all because 
the stately old building shelters the finger-bone of 
Ste. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin I All 
about are pyramids of crutches, canes, trusses, 


A LITTLE MAID OF OLD QUEBEC 49 

and even eye-glasses, which invalids have left be- 
hind as silent thank offerings to good Ste. Anne 
for their recovery. Sometimes as many as sixty 
thousand pilgrims come here in a single summer 
to implore favors of the Saint. 

Fanny Fly-away has no ills to cure. She gives 
the crowd a wide berth, and spends the most of 
her time in the homes of the French “ habitants.” 
Here these thrifty people are living exactly as did 
their French ancestors one hundred years ago. 
Rail fences enclose many a field, where the farmer 
plods slowly after his patient oxen from morning 
till night. At the house, his wife “he cooks de 
tea and pork,” and with the help of the children 
tills the little garden, spins and weaves, and cares 
for the poultry. Such fun as the children have 
playing hide-and-seek in the cozy, thatched-roof 
barn, with its steep little stairway leading up 
under the eaves to the loft I 

Often when their nimble fingers are busy husk- 
ing the corn fodder, a crooked or blighted ear is 
found. “Wagemin,” calls the merry finder, and 
immediately springs up to lead in the wildest 
antics. Some creep, some limp, and others hurry 
about bent almost double, in imitation of the 
stooping, weazened little man — the wicked corn 


50 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

thief, who, according to their Indian neighbors, 
must have visited the corn field and left this re- 
minder of his visit. 

Always there is time for a song or a story, at 
least when the doctor’s daughter is at hand. And 
such tales as they spin ! There is no end to the 
Indian legends, folk-lore, romantic history, and 
French Canadian superstitions. They never tire 
of tales concerning the adventures of Champlain, 
Cartier, and other early explorers, nor of the heroic 
deeds of Wolf, Levis, and the brave Montcalm. 
Fanny Fly-away tells impressively of picnicking 
on St. Helen’s Island near the very spot where, 
after the fall of Quebec, General Levis burned his 
regimental flags in a great funeral pyre, that the 
Bourbon lilies might not suffer the dishonor of 
falling into the hands of the British. St. Helen’s 
is named for Champlain’s wife. 

“ You know,” says our little maid, regretfully, 
” Quebec ought really to have been called Port 
Champlain, in honor of its founder, the brave 
Frenchman who explored all the territory here- 
abouts. But the old Indian name has clung to 
the city, and only two streets in the Lower Town 
bear the name of Champlain. No one seems to 
know his resting place, though it is certain his 


A LITTLE MAID OF OLD QUEBEC 51 


bones lie somewhere beneath the city. The great 
bronze monument, not far from our home, was 
erected in his honor. Uncle Louis says that the 
city itself is a monument to Champlain, and that 
it will never cease to be associated with him so 
long as the St. Lawrence journeys toward the 


Boys and Girls in China 

The Chinese have some queer ideas about 
training their children. When the baby is three 
days old he has his first bath. Then they have 
prayers and sacrifices and the baby’s wrists are 
tied with red cord. This is to prevent him from 
growing up mischievous and unruly. They have 
another day of festivity when the little one is a 
month old. The friends and relatives are invited, 
a great feast is spread, and after prayers and 
sacrifices the baby’s head is shaved. When he 
is four months old they have another great day, 
and the child is placed upon a chair for the first 
time. They cover the chair with a kind of glue 
so that the child sticks to it. This is to teach him 
that he must be quiet and not to expect his nurse 
or his mother to hold him. There is no other 
festal day until the child is a year old. Then he 
is put in a large sieve in which has been placed 
several articles, such as a pencil, a book, a piece 
of money, etc. Then the eager friends all gather 
around him. “Now,” says the grandmother, 
52 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 


53 


** watch I Whatever object he takes up that 
shall he hold through life." Of course, the child 
eagerly snatches something. If it happens to be 
the pencil they cry, “ He will write books 1 " or 
similarly for anything else. Then there is great 
rejoicing. The child is seated before an altar, 
upon which are lighted candles and images of the 
gods. The little fellow is made to bow low and 
raise his hands before the gods. As soon as he 
is old enough to understand, they begin to teach 
him lessons in manners and morals by means of 
short stories. 

The Chinese are much afraid of the gods of 
wrath who go about seeking for children whose 
parents are very fond of them. They reason that 
if the gods hear of a child with an ugly name 
they will think that his parents do not care for 
him and pass him by, so the fonder a parent is 
of a child the worse name he finds for him. 
Among the favorites are, “ Dirty Pig,” “ Worth- 
less Dog,” " Miserable Wretch," “ Devil," etc. 

Girl babies are not considered of importance, 
and it is said that sometimes they used to be 
drowned. Let us hope that this cruel prac- 
tice has ceased. Nowadays “extra" children 
are taken to the mission hospitals when they 


54 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


are born and are given out to women in the 
country who are paid for taking care of them. 
When a Chinese baby dies, a piece of coarse 
matting is tied around its body and it is carried 
to a tower erected outside of most cities, which 
has little openings like windows, but no doors. 
The body is thrown through one of these open- 
ings and falls into the pit below the tower. If 
the little one is a girl the parents do not grieve 
very much about it. They think the baby would 
have lived had it not been possessed of evil 
spirits, and they try to forget it as soon as pos- 
sible. 

When the Chinese boy is six years old a for- 
tune teller is consulted so that a lucky day may 
be chosen, and the lad is sent to school. This is 
an important day for the little Chinaman, and he 
looks very nice and clean that first morning in 
his bright new clothes, with his head newly 
shaven and his pigtail neatly plaited down his 
back. His father takes him by the hand and 
leads him to school. When he enters the school- 
room he marches up to the stern- looking master 
and makes him a present. He then goes to burn 
incense before a tablet which bears the revered 
name of Confucius. 






BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 


55 


The Chinese language has no alphabet, but 
there are about two hundred root words or 
sounds, which, when put together, make the 
words. The words are all of one syllable, and 
are written in columns instead of across the page, 
as our words are written. After the child learns 
the Chinese characters he is set to memorizing 
the classic writings of Confucius and other learned 
men. The pupils do not all have books, so the 
master reads a few lines and the scholars repeat 
after him to get the pronunciation. Then they 
are sent to their seats to commit the words to 
memory. They are instructed to shout their les- 
sons as they study them. In this way the master 
can tell if they are at work. Woe to the lad who 
forgets to shout, for the master keeps a heavy 
bamboo rod I 

The Chinese think it is a waste of time and 
money to educate their girls. So they are kept 
at home and taught the “ Four Virtues ” and the 
“Three Obediences,” or modesty and docility, 
careful speech, a submissive demeanor, proper 
employment and the degrees of dependence of a 
daughter upon her father, a wife upon her hus- 
band, and a mother upon her son. The Chinese 
girls are exhorted at all times to be good and 


56 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

submissive. The Chinese think that if the women 
were educated they would not obey their hus- 
bands and fathers and very likely they are right. 

The Chinese have some very queer customs. 
It seems to us that they do everything back- 
wards. For instance, the Chinese compass points 
south instead of north. Books are read back- 
wards, and the foot-notes are inserted at the top 
of the page. The spoken language of China is 
not written, and the written language is not 
spoken. The Chinese shake their own hands 
instead of the hands of those they greet. They 
dress in white at funerals, and in mourning at 
weddings ; while old women serve as brides- 
maids. They begin their dinner with dessert and 
end with soup and fish. 

The more crowded parts of their cities are very 
dense indeed. The streets are narrow alleys with 
little huts of houses packed in close together. 
Usually the Chinese shopkeepers are fawningly 
polite as long as they think there is any hope 
of selling anything, but sometimes they will not 
show a single thing unless you promise to 
buy it. The Chinese are naturally a jealous, 
suspicious people. They have been taught this 
for centuries. Away back as far as anything 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 


57 


is known of them they were taught to build a 
great wall around their country to make it safe 
from other nations. Parts of this wall are still 
standing and the people have not forgotten what 
it was built for. For a long time the Chinese 
would not have anything to do with other nations, 
but now the country along the coast is quite free, 
and a great many white people live in Chinese 
cities. However, the Chinese still keep in their 
own parts of town, leaving the white people to 
themselves. 

Here is the way a Chinese visitor to our land 
described Americans in his home paper : “ They 
live months without eating a mouthful of rice ; 
they eat bullocks and sheep in enormous quanti- 
ties ; they have to bathe frequently ; they eat 
meat with knives and prongs ; they never enjoy 
themselves by sitting quietly on their ancestors’ 
graves, but jump around and kick balls as if paid 
to do it, and they have no dignity, for they may 
be found walking with women.” 

There are more people in China than there are 
in all Europe and North and South America to- 
gether. There are so many people to feed and 
house that not an available inch of ground is 
wasted. The fields are full of laborers ; the people 


58 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

have crowded their houses as much as a thousand 
feet up the mountainside ; even the rivers are 
filled with great rafts upon which the people live 
and raise their fowls and vegetables. The people 
have made a great many canals through their 
country. The great Imperial canal of China is 
600 miles long. Farmers often have branch ca- 
nals running to their farms, and the farm boat in 
China takes the place of the farm wagon in other 
countries. 

The Chinese are not a progressive race. They 
boast of having the same fashions and customs 
that they had centuries ago. In the farming dis- 
tricts the natives work with very crude, awkward 
instruments, instead of taking advantage of the 
many machines that make farming easy now. 
They do not care ; labor is cheap, and there is 
plenty of time, so they plod along patiently. 
They never even dream of improving their old 
tools. The following are some Chinese ap- 
pliances : 

A Chinese threshing machine — Some slats of 
wood upon which the grain is whipped. 

A Chinese wagon — A man carrying two baskets 
which are suspended from the ends of a bamboo 
which rests upon his shoulder. 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 59 

A Chinese flour mill — Two small millstones 
operated by hand. 

A Chinese plow — Two pieces of wood and a 
triangular piece of iron. It makes a furrow about 
the width of the hand. 

A Chinese tea roller — A man with a small log 
of wood. 

The Chinese are idol worshipers, and foremost 
among their idolatrous rites is “ Ancestral Wor- 
ship.” Every house has a tablet, a hideous look- 
ing thing, upon which is recorded the name, title, 
hour and day of birth, and the hour and day of 
death of each deceased member of the family. 
The Chinese claim a person has three souls. 
After death one of these goes to dwell in the tab- 
let to watch over the family ; another goes to the 
tomb and abides there, while the third goes to 
Hades for a short time and then reappears in 
some new living state. Besides the tablet each 
deceased member has a tiny image to represent 
him. On festival days, and the birthdays of the 
departed, these images are brought out and duly 
honored and worshiped. They cook food, burn 
incense, and have all manner of ceremonies per- 
formed at the dwelling house and at the family 
temple and the family tomb. 


6o BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


The family temples are often very large and 
expensive and contain the ancestral tablets. The 
family tombs are usually built in the side of a hill 
and are sometimes very beautiful. The Chinese 
believe that the spirit of the dead hovers over the 
grave for a time. They carry food to the grave, 
and when that is gone, as between the thieves 
and the birds it is sure to be, they quickly replace 
it by more so the spirit will not be hungry. Be- 
sides all this attention at the burial ground, it is 
customary to build a shrine in the home of the 
departed. This shrine is very sacred ; the priest 
comes and says prayers over it, food is always 
placed before it, and on festival days a fire is built 
before it, bells are rung, gongs beaten, and the 
priest blesses and consecrates the food. 

Next to ancestral worship comes the worship of 
one’s parents. It is considered a special mark of 
divine favor when there is a grandparent in the 
home, and they are worshiped accordingly. Chi- 
nese children are taught to be very dutiful and 
respectful. And the matter is not left entirely to 
the parent. The hand of the law is over the 
child. He must obey his parents or answer to 
the law. If a child is publicly known to be dis- 
obedient, he is taken before the magistrate, in 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 


6i 


spite of any effort the parents may make to pro- 
tect him. The mother may say, “ My son did not 
feel well, or he was tired and worn out. Hereto- 
fore he has always obeyed.” But all to no pur- 
pose. The boy has committed a crime against 
the state, for the law says very plainly that a 
child must venerate his parents. He must stand 
punishment. If he is young and his crime has 
not been very bad, he may get off with fifty blows 
on the back with a bamboo stick, or a short term 
in prison. If he is brought back a second or third 
time, a wooden collar is fastened about his neck. 

A friend writes, ” This collar is so large that 
the boy cannot reach his mouth with his hand. 
He cannot wash his face nor braid his hair. He 
cannot brush a fly from his face nor feed himself. 
Neither can he lie down. If he wants to sleep, he 
must sit with his head propped against some- 
thing. As he cannot do this, he must get some 
one to do it for him. A boy with a wooden col- 
lar is a boy severely punished. If he has brothers 
and sisters, he may get along. They may bring 
him food and drink and help him while the weary 
hours away. Sometimes he must wear the collar 
for two months. ... If the boy is poor, or 
has no one who pities him, he is in a sorry plight. 


62 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


People, in general, do not care if the boy in the 
wooden collar does suffer. Every one knows his 
crime. He gets cuffs and kicks from every one ; 
he tries to hide from sight as much as he can. 
Sometimes he has been unkind to his brothers 
and sisters, and they now remember it. He has 
made enemies of those who should be his friends. 
Now is the time when he learns that a good friend 
is the best thing in the world. Without friends 
he suffers keenly. ... After the collar is re- 
moved, should he fall back into his old habits, he 
is soon brought before the judge again. This 
time he is imprisoned for a longer time; and 
unruly boys have even been put to death.** 

The Chinese are remarkably polite to each 
other. When two officials meet such a scene 
of bowing and scraping as ensues! The greet- 
ing takes such a long time that, if either of the 
officials is in a hurry, he passes by with an averted 
face and pretends not to see his friend. They 
think it better not to recognize each other at all 
than not to do it politely. When a guest takes 
leave of his host he passes out backwards, bowing 
and scraping, and does not turn his back until 
he reaches the street. The Chinaman uses very 
flattering words when speaking to another and 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 63 

refers to himself in the most abject terms. For 
instance, one Chinaman inquires, “ Where, most 
honored sir, may your most dutiful son be?’* 
The other replies, “The dirty dog is trying to 
learn a few characters at school.” 

But for all his oil of manner the Chinaman 
never forgets an enemy. One of the favor- 
ite modes of revenge is for a man to commit 
suicide on his enemy’s premises, because of the 
peculiar and great advantages his spirit then has 
for inflicting injury upon his enemy. 

If an important member of a Chinaman’s family 
is taken sick, he goes to the temple and prays 
and offers up sacrifices to the god which he be- 
lieves to control the particular disease with which 
the sick one is afflicted. If the patient recovers, 
the god is praised ; if he dies, the Chinaman says, 
“ It was the will of Heaven,” and in no way loses 
his faith in the gods. If one after another of a 
family is afflicted, they consider it the work of a 
“destroying god.” As soon as the sick one is 
able to be moved, a ceremony begging and brib- 
ing the “destroying god” is performed. An altar 
is built from the household furniture, and gods, 
candlesticks, and censers are placed upon it. 
Several priests are hired, and they march around 


64 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

the altar, hour after hour, chanting songs and 
jingling bells. The ceremony lasts from one to 
three days, according to the wealth and willing- 
ness of the family. 

The Chinese are very much afraid of smallpox 
and measles. If a storm comes up while either 
of these diseases is in progress, the people are 
greatly excited. They imagine that the thunder 
has a peculiar effect on the eruption, and as soon 
as the first peal is heard they ring bells, blow 
whistles, and make a deafening racket so the 
patient will not catch the sound of the thunder. 
If a Chinaman is suddenly stricken with a disease 
such as apoplexy or paralysis, the “ malignant 
spirits” are to blame, and they try at once to 
appease the wrath of the gods. Three cups of 
wine, a platter containing five kinds of fruit, a 
censer, and a pair of candlesticks are placed on 
the table in the sick man’s room. A quantity of 
mock money is burned and a priest engaged to 
help expel the demon. He walks up and down 
the room chanting and praying, and occasionally 
sprinkles the sick person and the table with water 
from a bowl which he has in his hand. Every 
few minutes he strikes the table with a stick which 
he carries. After a time the priest concludes the 


BOYS AND GIRLS IN CHINA 65 

ceremony by placing a paper charm above the 
door, another on the body of the patient, burns a 
third one to ashes, dissolves it in hot water and 
gives it to the patient to drink. 

The Chinese have great difficulty in learning to 
speak English. “ R ” is hard for them and they 
frequently add “ o,’^ “ e ” or “ ey ” to the end of 
words. They recognize but two pronouns “ he ” 
and “my.” “ Hab,” “ belongey,” and “can do” 

cover many words. “ Side ” means position ; and 
they have the words topside, bottomside, inside, 
outside, etc. “ Chop-chop ” means fast, and “ man- 
man ” means slow. If a Chinaman wanted to say 
anything was of very large size, he would say, 
“ He belongey too muchee big piecee.” 

This effort at our language is called “pigeon 
English.” When the white people first began to 
trade with the Chinese they had great difficulty 
in understanding each other. But presently the 
Chinese began to coin certain words, which the 
tradesmen termed “ business English.” The Chi- 
nese soon heard their name for the jargon, and tried 
to say it, but the nearest they could manage was 
“pidgidn English.” This the amused tradesmen 
turned into “ pigeon English,” and as such it has 
come to be known throughout the world. 


66 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

Here is the first verse of the poem “ Excelsior/’ 
written in pigeon English : 

That nightee him he come chop-chop, 

One young man walkee ; no man stop ; 

Makee snow, makee ice, 

He cally flag wit chop so nice, 

** Top-side Galah ! ” 

(^English.') 

The shades of night were falling fast, 

When through an Alpine village passed 
A youth who bore mid snow and ice 
A banner with the strange device. 

Excelsior.’* 


Juanita Maria San Jose 

Juanita Maria San Josfi is a little dark-eyed 
girl living away to the south in “ The Pearl of the 
Antilles.” Do you know what land this is? Your 
geography will tell you that it is Cuba, the largest 
and richest island of the West Indies. It lies 
about two hundred miles south of Florida, and is 
shaped like a great cornucopia, or horn of plenty, 
and the last phrase just describes it. Indeed, it is 
such a fairyland of flowers and fruits, that the 
Spaniards, its first settlers, spoke of it as “ the gar- 
den spot of the world.” 

The San Jose cottage, in the outskirts of Ha- 
vana, is a perfect bower of jasmine and roses. 
Great masses of the flowers we love and cultivate 
at home seem to spring up everywhere. There 
are wonderful clumps of sweet peas, heliotropes 
and honeysuckle, and the mignonette is a tree 
twenty feet high. Birds of beautiful plumage flit 
gayly about, but few of them are song birds. 
There are scores of wild pigeons and parrots, 

humming-birds^ crows, and vultures. The brown 
67 


68 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


pelican fishes along the shore, and there is a beau- 
tiful bird, with a blue head, scarlet breast, and 
green and white back. It is called the English 
lady-bird. Juanita Maria says that she loves the 
indigo bird the best of all. If you have ever seen 
and heard one of these sweet, untiring singers, 
you will know that she has good taste. Her 
brother Vincente has a young mocking-bird, which 
he guards jealously. He hopes to sell him some 
day for a big price. As high as $500 has been 
realized for one of these beautiful songsters. 

Juanita Maria and Vincente have to look after 
the chickens, the ponies, and the goats, and they 
make them quite welcome in the house at all 
times. Their mother does not seem to mind. 

Perhaps you would like to go with the children 
to deliver milk. It is great fun. The goats are 
driven from house to house, and milked according 
to the wants of the customer. Think of it ! Is it 
not a novel way of getting pure, fresh milk ? 

There are all kinds of berries, pineapples, plan- 
tain, and cocoanuts to gather. Plantain is a 
species of the banana. Cubans who cannot afford 
to buy baker’s bread make a sort of bread from 
the plantain. Cocoanut milk is sweet and deli- 
cious and very healthful. Vincente knows how to 


69 


JUANITA MARIA SAN JOSE 

make dainty little dishes from the nut shells. He 
and Juanita Maria like to spread their bread with 
the rich preserve which their mother makes from 
the green fruit. Butter is seldom made in Cuba. 
It is too warm. 

Juanita Maria does not have a nicely fitted 
room, with frilled curtains, dainty dressing table, 
and soft white bed, all for her very own, as many 
of you girls do. Her bed is a “ shake down ” of 
cocoanut leaves. She moves it about the living- 
room, in front of a door or a window, to suit the 
whim of the breeze. For there is no winter in 
this land, and always it is a problem to keep cool. 
The windows and doors reach from the ceiling to 
the floor. There are neither curtains nor glass in 
the windows. Iron bars and heavy wooden shut- 
ters take their place. There are no doors inside 
the houses. 

In the homes of the well-to-do, curtains are 
used at the inner doors for privacy, and instead 
of knocking it is the custom to speak before pass- 
ing a curtain. There are no carpets on the floors, 
which are usually made of tile or cement. Doors 
and windows open directly upon the sidewalk, for 
there are no front yards in Cuba. The wealthy 
Cuban builds his dooryard inside his house, or 


70 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

rather his house is built in a square around his 
dooryard I This square is called the court or 
“ patio ” and is the sitting-room of the family. It 
is a beautiful place, with vines, trees, and plants. 
The floor is tiled, and in the center is a fountain 
which cools the air. 

Juanita Maria's father is a carpenter. He tells 
us that there are twenty-six varieties of native 
palms, the finest mahogany, cedar, rosewood, 
ebony, and dye-woods growing on the island. 
His own cabin is built of palm wood, thatched 
with palm leaves, grass, and reeds, as are all the 
houses of the laboring class. The houses of the 
well-to-do are built of porous stone covered with 
stucco, the walls being sometimes two or three 
feet through, because of the earthquakes and 
hurricanes that often visit the country. And how 
gay everything is ! Here is a house painted 
bright blue, with yellow trimmings ; over there is a 
house of rose color, with green trimmings; and 
still farther is one of red and yellow. The Cuban 
loves bright colors, and he knows, too, that they 
absorb the sharp rays of sunshine ; hence his 
reason for spreading them on everywhere. Were 
it not for the toning influence of these gay colors, 
the strain upon the eyes would be severe. 


71 


JUANITA MARIA SAN JOSE 

Juanita Maria and Vincente have good times 
in the grove of royal palm trees just back of their 
house. Vincente says it is much better than a 
patio. And truly it is the most beautiful of all 
playgrounds ! The trees rise like tall spindles of 
polished marble to a height of sixty or seventy 
feet. They are crowned by clusters of huge 
plume-like leaves. The stems of these leaves 
look like thin boards, and the natives use them 
for thatch for their cottages. 

Indeed, so useful is the palm, that the Cubans 
call it “ the blessed tree.” The leaf buds make a 
delicious vegetable dish. The blossoms furnish 
honey for the bees, and the seeds make good 
food for the hogs. The trunk is split into strips 
and used for siding, and for benches and tables. 
The hard part of the trunk makes good canes, 
and the roots are used for medicine. 

There are a great many holidays and feast 
days in Cuba, more than one hundred in all. 
Juanita Maria likes the Patron SainPs Day best. 
A little girl, dressed as an image of the saint, is 
carried all about in a small cart all decorated with 
flowers and banners. Before her is a band of 
men on horseback dressed as Indians. Behind 
her come men clad as Moors. There is a band 


72 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

and the people march all about the town. Finally 
a halt is made and the little girl stands up and 
recites some verses about the saint, then there is 
more music and every one has a royal good time 
with games and dancing. 

A carnival lasting for several days is always 
held in Havana before Lent. The people come 
out in their carriages and crowd the streets 
throughout the afternoon. They are gayly 
dressed in fancy costumes with masks, and 
throw flowers, bits of paper, and sometimes tiny 
bags of flour at each other. 

But the greatest fun of all, the children think, 
is the christening of a baby sister or brother. 
There was a christening in the San Jose family 
last month, and Juanita Maria tells about it with 
happy pride. The little one was called Therese 
Maria. (All girl babies in Cuba are named Maria 
in honor of the Virgin Mary.) Don Juan Vin- 
cente, the man for whom Juanita’s brother was 
named, was the godfather. He is godfather to 
nearly all the children in the community, because 
he is quite the richest man among them and well 
liked. It is an honor which entails considerable 
expense ; for he must provide the birthday dinner 
and entertainment for all the guests, and present 


JUANITA MARIA SAN JOSE 73 

the father and mother and other near relatives of 
the little one with a gold or silver coin attached to 
a cord so that it may be worn as a “ luck piece.” 
However, it is a duty which his riches bring him, 
and he accepts it all good-naturedly. 

Little Therese Maria was a perfect love, Juanita 
says, and did not cry or even make the leastest 
face through all the long ceremonies. But, of 
course, she was not allowed to go to the dinner, 
where fish, wild duck, candied sweet potatoes, 
eggplant, boiled cabbage, baker’s bread, cocoa- 
nut wine and preserves, peanuts, and fruit of 
many kinds were served in great plenty. Nor 
did she attend the grand cock-fight, or take part 
in the delightful games, and the moonlight dance 
under the trees, which lasted till very late. 

Vincente says he is going to turn farmer next 
season. He is tired of fishing, gathering oysters 
and clams, and snaring birds and fireflies, and he 
does not think he would like to work on the sugar 
and tobacco plantations, as his brothers do. He 
seems rather small for a farmer, but we know that 
all the children in Cuba are thoroughly trained to 
work, excepting those of the very rich who are 
taught that it is ill-bred. So we ask him gravely 
how he expects to do the plowing. 


74 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

“Oh/’ he laughs, “that will be the easiest 
part of all! Uncle Christopher just scratches 
his ground with a big crooked limb. My pony 
can pull one easily. You see the ground is so 
very rich it does not need deep plowing. Vege- 
tables and grains grow much more quickly here 
than they do in your country. I can raise several 
crops a year. There will be fresh green corn to 
cut for the pony and the cows all the year around, 
and such peanuts and sweet potatoes as I shall 
raise 1 ” 

Juanita Maria is coaxing to be allowed to go 
and keep house for Vincente. They have a little 
hut of palm wood all planned. It will have one 
large room, with a tiny “ lean-to” for a kitchen — 
just as all the Cuban farmers have. And Juanita 
is quite certain that she can keep everything neat 
and tidy. “ I will have lots of time,” she says, 
“ for so much of our food grows wild, there will 
be very little cooking to do.” 

Small as he is, Vincente has fashioned, in odd 
moments, some very creditable tables and benches 
for this dream cottage. They are of solid ma- 
hogany, hand-polished to the very last degree! 
There are also a number of plates, cups, and 
skewers with long handles, fashioned from cocoa- 



© Every land Magazine 


ONE OF UNCLE SAM S SCHOOLS 



75 


JUANITA MARIA SAN JOS6 

nut shells. There are, too, some very queer can- 
dles. One like them is in use in his mother’s cot- 
tage, and certainly it is a very novel light indeed. 
It is a large gourd pierced with many tiny holes, 
and filled with fireflies I Juanita Maria says that 
all the Cuban laborers have this sort of candle, 
and that she has earned many pennies catching 
fireflies for this purpose. 

Juanita Maria and Vincente know very little 
about school. Indeed, it is only since Uncle Sam 
became interested in the Cubans that there has 
been any school for them to go to. Before this 
there were convent schools, to be sure, but these 
were for the children of the rich. Now there are 
more than 2,000 free schools. People are getting 
interested in education, and all sorts of innova- 
tions are being brought in with it. 

“ I am so glad,” says Juanita Maria naively, 
“ that my children will not need to grow as old as 
I was, without ever seeing a comb or a wash-cloth, 
or knowing that there is such a thing as school ! ” 

She means to learn to read, and is greatly in- 
terested in a little book which some one has 
given her — ** The Story of Columbus.” She has 
heard from her grandmother all about how Co- 
lumbus discovered Cuba, October 28, 1492, and 


76 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

described it as “ the most beautiful land eyes ever 
beheld — full of excellent ports and rivers, and ex- 
celling other countries as far as the day surpasses 
the night in brightness and splendor.’’ 

On Sunday morning Juanita and Vincente go 
with their parents to early mass in the great 
cathedral of Columbus. It is a beautiful building 
of brown stone, now almost black with age, and 
the inside is finished in mahogany. There is a 
handsome grand altar and several small altars, 
each one devoted to some saint. In this cathe- 
dral is the tomb of Columbus, a marble tablet 
some six or eight feet square with his bust 
upon it. 

Many people come out to mass. The Cuban 
ladies are dressed in black, with black mantillas 
or lace scarfs on their heads. This is their street 
dress ; at home they nearly always wear white. 
Each lady has a little servant with her, who 
carries a rug or a chair for his mistress and 
sometimes both. She kneels upon the rug to 
offer her prayers, and then sits for awhile in the 
chair to rest. 

After the early morning hours, Sunday in Ha- 
vana is not greatly different from other days of 
the week, unless perchance it is more noisy. The 


JUANITA MARIA SAN JOSE 77 

stores are open. Here and there on the street 
corners boys and men are engaged in gambling 
and games of chance. Before the government 
put a stop to it, this was the favorite day for a 
bull-fight. Always there is a grand cock-fight in 
the park, with music and much merrymaking 
generally. 


Peter Hebner of Holland 


Peter Hebner is a little Dutch boy. He lives 
in “the Land of Windmills/’ which is the land 
of Holland. It lies far across the Atlantic Ocean, 
in Europe. Your geographies name it the Neth- 
erlands. And such a great flat country as it is 1 
Once the sea covered much of it, but the people 
built great dykes, or walls of earth, around the 
shallow places, and then pumped out the water 
with windmills. In rainy seasons the mills are 
kept very busy. They are also used to grind 
corn and beat hemp. They are all gayly colored 
and add a pretty note to the landscape. But 
some day these mills will be gone. For steam is 
beginning to do the work of the wind, and great 
brick buildings with tall chimneys are taking the 
place of the mills in many parts of the country. 

Probably some of you have read the story 
Phoebe Cary tells of the brave little boy who 
stopped a leak in one of the dykes. You remem- 
ber his mother sent him one evening to carry a 
plate of cakes across the dyke to the hut of an old 
78 


PETER HEBNER OF HOLLAND 79 

blind man. Little Peter did his errand quickly 
and was coming home more slowly, stopping now 
and then by the side of the dyke to gather flowers. 
He heard the sea roaring against the dyke and 
felt glad that the wall was good and strong for he 
knew that if the dyke should break the people 
near would all be drowned. All at once, through 
the noise of the waters, came a low, clear trickling 
sound that made his face pale with terror. He 
dropped his blossoms and hurried up the bank, 
where he found the water trickling through a hole 
in the dyke. Even as he watched, the hole grew 
larger and the water poured through in a stream. 
He gave a loud shout, kneeled down, and thrust 
his arm into the opening, thus forcing back the 
weight of the sea. No one was near. He shouted 
until his voice was gone, but no help came. He 
would not leave, for he felt that it was better for 
one little boy to lose his life than for many men, 
women, and children to be drowned. Early in 
the morning a search party found him in a faint 
beside the dyke with his arm still stopping the 
leak. They carried him home and for many days 
they were anxious about him, but God spared his 
life. Long years have passed since then, but 
when the sea roars like a flood the Hollanders 


8o BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


take their sons by the hand and tell them of brave 
little Peter whose courage saved the land. 

Holland is also a land of canals. They run 
here and there in a regular network. Some of 
the larger ones are for boats and barges, some 
are to drain the land, and others take the place 
of fences. When these canals are frozen, men, 
women, and children go about on skates. The 
women skate to the villages with their market 
baskets on their heads, and their babies strapped 
on their backs with a shawl. The children skate 
to school and stack their skates and wooden shoes 
up outside. They are very careful not to carry 
dirt into the schoolroom, and sit about all day 
with only their thick woolen stockings on. 

Peter Hebner lives on a dairy farm, and all 
about are other dairy farms scattered here and 
there between the canals. Let us take a peep at 
the cow stable. It is the most wonderful stable 
you ever saw I The floor is made of brick, and 
the walls are whitewashed. They have white 
curtains and pots of flowers in the windows. The 
floor is scrubbed every day, and the cows are 
washed and combed. Their sleek black and 
white coats shine like satin. And such fine but- 
ter and “pineapple*^ cheese as is made in the 


PETER HEBNER OF HOLLAND 8i 


spotless dairy ! Holland, you know, is the home- 
land of the Holsteins. The aristocrats of this 
breed of cattle, the world over, count back their 
ancestors to the Fresian Holsteins, of Fresian 
County, Holland. 

The trunks of the trees in the Hebners’ door- 
yard are painted bright -blue. There is one tree 
cut to look like a peacock. Another tree is 
shaped like a deer. Little mirrors are hung out- 
side the windows in such a way that the people 
in the house can see what is going on around it. 
There is a stork’s nest on the roof of the house. 
The Hollanders are very fond of the stork. 
They think the stork’s nest on the roof brings 
good luck to their home and, therefore, treat 
them very kindly. 

Would you like to go into the house ? Very 
well. But you must first take off your shoes. 
Mrs. Hebner would never forgive you if you 
tracked dirt in on her handsome tiled floor that 
shines like a china plate. Such order, such spot- 
less cleanliness I The old brass-trimmed furni- 
ture, that has been in the Hebner family for 
generations, shines so bright that you can see 
your face in it. But where are the beds ? Do 
these people sleep on the floor as do the Mexican 


82 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


and Japanese? No, just open that sliding door 
in yonder wall, and you will see them built one 
above another like a row of shelves. 

Peter Hebner has a little sister named Katrina. 
She is a shy, solid, rosy-cheeked child with bright 
eyes, but she is dressed so queerly that we can 
scarcely keep from smiling. She looks like some 
little old woman, and well she may for she is 
dressed just like her mother. She wears a short 
blue skirt, a black waist with red sleeves, and a 
long embroidered apron. She has a wide band 
of gold around her head from which hang long 
golden earrings. We rather suspect that she ran 
and put on this ornament when she saw us com- 
ing. When she goes to church, she puts a beau- 
tiful lace veil over the gold band, and over the 
lace she wears a bonnet with a large bunch of 
flowers upon it. Some of the Holland women 
wear bonnets with great flapping wings like 
birds ; others wear gold or silver helmets which 
cover the head. 

When Katrina was born a pink silk ball cov- 
ered with lace was hung at the front door, so 
that all the neighbors would know that there was 
a girl baby in the house. When Peter was born 
his father joyfully hung out a red silk ball. In 


PETER HEBNER OF HOLLAND 83 


Holland babies are wrapped round and round 
with bands of cloth. They can hardly move their 
arms and legs. When they begin to learn to 
walk they have little cushions bound on their 
heads to save them from bumps. 

Every year, in vacation, Katrina and Peter go 
to visit their Cousin Lottchen in the city of 
Amsterdam. They go on their Uncle Ben Mo- 
ritz’s canal boat. His family live on the boat 
so that the children have a fine time. The 
boat is painted in pretty colors, and the win- 
dows have white lace curtains tied with bright 
ribbons. 

There is a large canal in the street where 
Lottchen lives. The children can look out of the 
window and see ships and steamers from all parts 
of the world. Some of these ships bring drugs, 
coffee, and spices from the large islands south- 
east of Asia, from the West Indies, and from 
South America. Some bring food products from 
the United States, and others bring diamonds 
from the mines of Africa to be cut and polished. 


Two Little Girls of Egypt 

Miriam and Bithia are two little girls living 
far away in the valley of the Nile in Egypt 
Perhaps you have heard of the great Nile. It 
is the most wonderful river in all the world. 
The people of that region look upon it as their 
dearest friend, and in times gone by they wor- 
shiped it as the giver of all. They believed that 
it was a branch of some great heavenly river ; 
and that it descended from the clouds to bestow 
its waters upon their desolate soil. 

For weeks and months, sometimes for a whole 
year, not a drop of rain falls in this strange 
country. But along in April, as the sun’s heat 
extends farther and farther north, the rains begin 
in the high mountains away to the south. Water 
falls in torrents and soon all the little brooks and 
streams are up and off in great glee to join the 
Nile, carrying with them large quantities of silt 
and sediment. From a slow sleepy stream the 
river suddenly rises to a thing of might, sweeping 
over its banks and extending out over the sunken 
84 


TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 85 

plains in every direction, sometimes to a depth of 
three or four feet. And the people watch it with 
glad hearts. For they know that when the river 
goes back to its own a rich layer of black soil 
will be left behind. The deeper the overflow is 
the richer the soil will be. For hundreds of years 
the Egyptians gathered from north, south, east, 
and west every spring at the beginning of the 
overflow to hold a festival to the god of the Nile. 
They marched in great processions, singing 
hymns, making offerings, and beseeching him 
to do his best for them. 

But the father of our little friends knows better. 
He knows that the great Nile is formed by the 
junction of two rivers down at Khartoum, a city 
many miles to the south. He and little Miriam 
and Bithia measure the depth of the water each 
day, and plan over and over again what they will 
plant when the soil is ready. There must be corn, 
barley and beans, some leeks and onions, a little 
flax and sugar cane, and possibly some cotton and 
tobacco. 

At last, in November, the planting time arrives. 
So, while we are getting ready for the cold and 
snows of winter, our little friends are busily help- 
ing their father scratch the rich earth with sharp- 


86 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


ened sticks, or perhaps riding for ballast on his 
novel harrow — a heavy tree branch. Then the 
seed is sown broadcast from a bag of grain slung 
over the father’s shoulder. And now comes the 
best time of all ! The children drive the sheep 
back and forth over and over to tramp the grain 
into the earth so that it may sprout and grow. 
Soon the fields are a lovely green, and by the last 
of March the crop is ready to be gathered. The 
farmer cuts his grain with a scythe. Later it is 
threshed by spreading it out on a hard floor 
and driving the sheep and oxen over and over it 
until the grain is trodden out. 

Miriam’s and Bithia’s home is an odd-looking 
mud hut under the palm trees. All about are the 
huts of their neighbors. But there are no streets, 
no schoolhouses, churches, or shops. Indeed it 
seems a rather forlorn place. But the girls like 
it. Every now and then the Arabian traders come. 
These are camel drivers from the Arabian desert 
just across the Red Sea to the east of Egypt. 
They carry goods to the merchants in Cairo and 
stop in Wadi Halfi to rest and trade with the vil- 
lagers. The traders are big, fierce-looking fel- 
lows, very black and bold. Their only garment 
is a long strip of brown cotton cloth, thrown over 



Everyland Magazine 


A STREET IN AN EGYPTIAN CITY 



TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 87 

the shoulder so as to leave the right arm free, and 
then wound about the waist and loins. The girls 
are more than half afraid of them, but they would 
not miss seeing the inside of the gay tents. It is 
a pleasure to examine their wares — the handsome 
dress goods of wondrous weave and color, the 
soft, silky muslins, the shining beads and trinkets, 
the rich perfumes — even though they can buy but 
little. 

Sometimes Miriam and Bithia go with their 
father and mother for a peep into the bazaars at 
Cairo. They carry with them for sale wonderful 
little baskets filled with great clusters of lotus 
flower.^ The ancient Egyptians held the lotus 
flower sacred because it grew on the banks of their 
beloved Nile — a further gift of their revered god 
who brought them all things good. They used it 
in the decoration of their temples. The flower 
was to them a symbol also of life and immortality. 

The bazaars are the shopping streets of Cairo. 
They are very crooked and narrow, and roofed 
over with ragged matting. On each side of the 
street are little shops not much larger than a big 
store box. Sometimes there is a second story 
with an overhanging balcony. At one end of a 

1 A flower very similar to our water lily. 


88 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


certain street all the shops sell red slippers, and 
nothing but red slippers. If you wish another 
color of slipper, you must find the section where 
that color is sold. Shoes are found in an entirely 
different quarter. You cannot buy silk and cot- 
ton cloth in the same shop. The silk shops are 
many, but they are near together. The same is 
true of the cotton shops. And such silk and such 
cotton I Colors that one has dreamed of but 
scarce imagined > weaves and patterns of the most 
wonderful design ! All sorts of gold and silver 
and brass goods, precious stones, sweet perfumes, 
and what not are to be found in these dirty little 
shops where no sun ever shines. The passages 
are unpaved. There are fleas and donkeys at 
every turn, and yet in spite of all they are the most 
wonderful shops in the world. Miriam and Bithia 
never tire of them, nor would you. 

As they journey into Cairo our friends get a 
good view of the great stone pyramids of Egypt, 
on the right bank of the Nile, not far from the city. 
These pyramids are reckoned first among the 
seven great wonders of the world. They are the 
tombs of ancient kings. The largest one, the 
pyramid of Gizeh, covers nearly four acres of 
ground. It is estimated that about four million 


TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 89 

tons of hewn stone were used in its construction. 
How the poor slaves, working often with no tools 
but their bare hands, ever managed to tug and 
drag them into place is a miracle indeed I Hun- 
dreds, yes thousands, of them bled and died un- 
noted in the useless effort. 

In the green fields not far from Cairo stands a 
tall column or obelisk of rosy granite. It is the 
gravestone of the great ancient city of Heliopolis 
(He-li-op-o-lis), which lies buried here beneath 
the shifting sands. This city is the ancient city 
of On of the Scriptures, the home of the priest 
Potipherah whose daughter was married to Jo- 
seph. The beautiful obelisk probably marks one 
side of the doorway to a temple. There were 
always two of these long columns, one on either 
side of the door, chiseled and carved with the 
records and conquests of the king in whose reign 
the temple was built. In Central Park, New York 
City, is an obelisk of granite, called “ Cleopatra’s 
Needle,” which once marked one side^ of the 
Temple of the Sun in the old city of Heliopolis. 
It was presented to our country by the Egyptian 
government, and moved to its present position at 

1 The mate to this obelisk was presented to England. It was moved 
to London in 1878. 


90 


BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


a cost of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. 
The obelisk weighs 1,470 tons. It was necessary 
to remove the shaft, pedestal and steps sep- 
arately, and build them up again in their former 
position. 

The earliest history of the world begins on the 
banks of the Nile ; so it is not strange that Egypt 
should be a land of relics, superstition, and queer 
customs. Religion has always been closely inter- 
woven with the every-day life of the people. They 
are fond of ceremonies and festivals. The chil- 
dren are carefully taught politeness and reverence 
for their elders. Miriam and Bithia have a dear 
old grandmother who never tires of telling tales of 
the days when the priests ruled, when the bull, the 
crocodile, and other animals were worshiped, and 
when the best part of life was spent in caring for 
the dead. 

A sacred bull, called an Apis, was kept in the 
temple. He was consulted as an oracle, and his 
breath was said to confer great blessings upon 
the children brought before him. When an Apis 
died the whole country was plunged in mourning, 
and his funeral was often so great and costly as 
to ruin the officials who had him in charge. The 
funeral was followed by a period of feasting and 


TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 91 

rejoicing, as soon as the priests could find a new 
Apis. They recognized him by certain marks on 
the animal’s body, which showed that the god 
Osiris dwelt in him ! 

In some parts of the land, the people went to 
great lengths in their worship of the crocodile. 
A certain number of these animals were kept in 
the temple, where they were given elegant apart- 
ments, and treated to every luxury, at public ex- 
pense. Imagine a crocodile fresh from a warm, 
richly perfumed bath, its head and neck glittering 
with jeweled earrings and necklace, and its feet 
with bracelets, wallowing on a costly carpet to 
receive the worship of human beings I The death 
of a crocodile was a public calamity. Its body, 
wrapped in the finest linen, was carried to the 
embalmers, followed by a sorrowing multitude, 
weeping, and beating their breasts in grief. 

No one but the priests understood the art of 
embalming, and they guarded the secret care- 
fully. In the case of the very wealthy so many 
ceremonies and so much preparation was needed 
that often it was many months before the body 
was ready for the tomb. It rested for seventy 
days in an embalming fluid. Then it was re- 
moved and carefully wrapped in yards and yards 


92 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

of linen bandages. Each member received its 
own special wrapping, and prayers were made 
to the god presiding over that part of the body. 
Prayers and pictures of the gods were printed on 
the bandages. Rings were placed upon the fin- 
gers and bracelets upon the arms. Then the 
mummy was ready for the coffin. And such a 
coffin 1 It was a richly ornamented case shaped 
to fit the body, with the face of the deceased 
carved upon it. Sometimes, if the person was 
of wealth and importance, the mummy case was 
entirely overlaid with gold. Frequently a mummy 
was kept in the house for days and weeks before 
it was consigned to the tomb. Mornings and 
evenings members of the family went to the closet 
where it was kept to weep over it and embrace it 
and to offer sacrifices to the gods. Sometimes 
it was brought out to join in festivities given in 
its honor ! 

On the day of the funeral the mummy was borne 
upright on a sledge to the sacred lake outside 
the city. Here forty-two judges formed a circle 
about it and carefully inquired as to its past life 
and character. If all was found satisfactory, it 
was rowed across the lake and taken to the burial 
place. If, however, an evil life was proven, the 


TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 93 

lake could not be crossed, and the distressed 
friends had to leave the body of their disgraced 
relative unburied, or carry it home and wait until 
the wrath of the gods could be appeased with 
gifts and sacrifices. 

A stone tomb or mastaba was the final resting 
place for the mummy. It had two chambers : 
one for the body and one for the “ Ka.’* The 
“ Ka ” was the soul. After leaving the body, it 
went to the other world and there was examined 
by the forty-two judges of Osiris. After remain- 
ing away for a time, the soul returned to the body 
in this chamber. If it failed to find its own body, 
it entered the body of some animal or insect. 
The cat, dog, ape, hawk, frog, asp, and beetle 
were the favorites. Hence these were considered 
sacred. If one died it was embalmed and buried 
with careful ceremonies. If the family cat died, 
all the household shaved their eyebrows. When 
the dog died they shaved their entire bodies. No 
one in Egypt, even to this day, would think of 
killing a cat. Time was when such an act, even 
if by accident, was punishable by death. 

The Egyptians believed that the dead would 
need both food and money in the next world. So 
these were placed in the tomb. But after awhile 


94 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

they decided that pictures of the articles would do 
as well. Thenceforward the inside of the cham- 
bers were plentifully decorated with carved plates 
of food, goblets of wine, and an abundance of gold 
and silver. In addition to this, little statuettes 
of the man’s wife and children were made and 
placed in a narrow passageway alongside of the 
chamber. A tiny hole in the wall of the smaller 
chamber allowed the “ Ka ” to commune with his 
friends, when no one was around, and thus he 
was kept from being lonely ! Many statuettes of 
servants in the chamber of the “ Ka” waited upon 
the spirit of the body. 

Those Egyptians who were too poor to have 
the bodies of their dead embalmed by the priests, 
simply cleansed and salted them and rolled them 
in coarse mummy cloth — a material resembling 
our tow sacking. Then they were dipped in 
liquid pitch, dried, and buried in the sand. 
Miriam and Bithia have often seen mummies of 
this sort. Quite frequently their father unearths 
them in his field. He uses them for fuel I 

Many trading vessels sail up and down the 
Nile carrying goods of all sorts. The girls like 
to watch them and to speculate on where the 
ships are going and what they carry. They 


TWO LITTLE GIRLS OF EGYPT 95 

think it would be great fun to make the trip 
themselves. They have never been on a boat. 
But they have ridden on “ the noble ship of the 
desert.” Do you know what this is ? Bithia says 
it is not by any means the easiest way to travel. 
When a camel walks he lifts the forefoot and the 
hindfoot on the same side at the same time. This 
gives a jolting, seesaw motion that rattles your 
teeth. If you know how to use your “ koorbash” 
(whip) so as to make the animal pace, it is a little 
smoother “ sailing.” 

Our little friends play in the shade of the date 
palm and the sycamore fig. These are the prin- 
cipal trees of Egypt. The acacia or gum-arabic 
tree grows to a small size, and there is a shrub 
called the tamarisk. As we have seen, the winter 
months are the most delightful part of the year ; 
later it is exceedingly hot, the ground becomes 
parched and dry, and in May a suffocating 
simoom begins to blow from the desert plains. 
At night there are usually heavy dews and the 
air is cool and refreshing. Egypt is not a very 
healthy land. Frequently the plague and the 
cholera sweep across it. Miriam and Bithia often 
have the most distressing boils. So, while there 
are yet many interesting things to learn about the 


96 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


valley of the Nile, we are glad to turn for the 
present from these little dark-haired, dark-skinned 
cousins, the daughters of the first nation in the 
history of the world. 


Jack and Betty in England 

Jack and Betty live in a delightful ivy-grown 
farmhouse on a large dairy farm. Swallows nest 
in the thatched roof, and Jack has put up bird 
houses here and there for the bluebirds and mar- 
tins. There is a dear old-fashioned country gar- 
den, with a corner in it for the children’s very 
own. Such quantities of sweet peas, white-nan- 
cies, larkspur and sweet-williams as Betty gathers 1 
She makes many pennies selling nosegays. 
Often, too, some one sends to her for lavender, 
thyme, or sweet marjoram. Jack’s specialties are 
pansies, tall, pale evening primroses, and the 
most wonderful hollyhocks, six or seven feet 
high, in all shades and tints from yellow to the 
darkest ruby color. He has a vegetable garden, 
too, and many a basket of lettuce, peas, and cauli- 
flower goes to market from his corner. 

When the young gardeners are tired, there is a 
most restful bench beneath a quaint old sun-dial. 
Here they love to sit and tell riddles and fairy tales 
and to go over again and again the wondrous 
97 


98 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

tales of Queen Mab and her fairy followers, Robin 
Hood and his merry band, and King Arthur and 
his noble knights. Sometimes, too, they talk in 
awed voices of the “ Gytrash,’’ a hideous animal 
in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, which in 
times gone by was said to haunt lonely roads to 
the disaster of straying travelers. Again they 
speak of the loup garou^ a creature half-man, half- 
wolf, which used to feast upon children. 

Jack and Betty have a dear little Shetland pony 
named Rab, and a pair of the proudest peacocks 
that ever sported trains. They are called Topaz 
and Sapphire, and are very tame. They follow 
the children all about, and had rather eat from 
their hands than to lower their proud heads to 
the ground. They do not fancy Nero, the collie, 
and they make Blacky Daw hustle into the near- 
est tree. 

Jack and Betty are little golf fiends. They 
play tennis, too, fairly well, and Jack belongs to 
the Country Boys’ Cricket Club. Indeed, he is 
a very important member. People speak of him 
as Captain Jack of Hawthorn Farm. Nearly all 
the farms in England are enclosed with hedges. 
Often the farms get their names from the kind 
of their hedge. You should see Hawthorn 


JACK AND BETTY IN ENGLAND 99 

Farm when its borders are a mass of pinkish- 
white bloom I Neighboring places are known as 
“ Sweet Brier Farm,” “ Willow Farm,” “ Holly 
Farm,” etc. 

There are many ruined castles in the country 
round about. One of these is an ideal place for 
Jack and Betty and the children of the neighbor- 
hood to intrench themselves as followers of brave 
Launcelot, or of Richard the Lion-hearted. Its 
yellow-brown stone walls are surrounded by a 
deep, clear moat. The rickety drawbridge swings 
close to a fortified old gate tower. There are 
all sorts of secret chambers and passages, with 
crooked halls, hidden stairways, and ghostly 
dwellers in the shape of bats and rooks. Such 
sport as the children have here ! It is just the 
place to spend a rainy day. 

You would enjoy keeping Christmas week with 
Jack and Betty. There is always a house full of 
company, with Grandfather as Master of Cere- 
monies. He likes to keep up old customs, 
and at this season of the year his heart is as 
young as Jack’s. On Christmas Eve the men 
bring in the yule log and bank it carefully in 
the great fireplace. Grandfather has on hand a 
brand from last year’s yule log; he lights this 


loo BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


and carefully kindles the waiting mass. Then 
the family gathers about the ruddy blaze, telling 
stories and singing Christmas songs. As the 
fire dies down, the children pop corn and roast 
chestnuts and apples. The supper— or more 
properly speaking — the dinner table is deco- 
rated with holly and evergreens, and lighted 
with gorgeous Christmas candles. There are no 
end of good things to eat, the children’s favorites 
being mince pie and a kind of porridge, made 
by boiling richly spiced wheat cakes in milk. 

After dinner, the dining-room is cleared, an 
old fiddler comes in, and everybody joins light- 
heartedly in the old-fashioned dances. And 
Grandfather I No one more enjoys the spirit of 
the occasion. He somehow manages to forget 
his gout and gets through one or two sets, some- 
times more. The party breaks up with heartfelt 
hand-shaking all around, a brand from the yule 
log is charred for next year’s Christmas cheer, 
and soon every one is sound asleep. Jack and 
Betty have a fancy that the fairies hold high revel 
round the deserted hearth at midnight, but they 
have never dared steal in to see about it, for the 
stockings are hung there, and it is well under- 
stood that Santa Claus is no friend to pryers. 


JACK AND BETTY IN ENGLAND loi 


Christmas morning Jack and Betty and their 
little cousins awake the sleepers by singing Christ- 
mas carols in front of the chamber doors. Such 
laughing and scampering, such merry Christmas 
cheer I For the youthful singers try to get away 
without being discovered. There is always an 
hour or two of outdoor sports of some kind after 
breakfast, for the youngsters of the family, at 
least. Then everybody goes to the services in 
the little chapel just over the hill. How beauti- 
fully the house is decorated I But the children 
know just how lovely it is, for did they not spend 
all the previous morning carrying greens and 
potted plants and jumping here and yonder at 
the beck and call of the merry young women of 
the neighborhood, who were ** on the program ” 
to trim the chapel? Such exquisite carols and 
Christmas anthems! The children enjoy their 
share of these. Then comes the sermon, and 
soon every one is wishing everybody else a 
happy day, and the children are racing home 
helter skelter. 

The Christmas dinner is served at the evening 
meal. Such a feast! There is one dish which 
never appears in any other land. It is peacock 
pie. Grandfather himself looks after the raising 


102 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


of the birds for this dish, and it is a point of pride 
to have them the handsomest possible, for the tail 
feathers are used in its decoration. An imitation 
head of candied sweets marks the opposite end of 
the dish. In times gone by a real peacock’s head 
was used for this purpose. The knights of old 
England dined on peacock pie before giving their 
oaths of chivalry, hence it came sometimes to be 
said that they swore “ by cock and pie.” 

Another old time custom in which Grandfather 
delights is the Wassail Bowl. At the close of the 
dinner, a bowl of his own mixing is brought in — 
usually it is made up of ale, sugar, nutmeg, gin- 
ger, toast and roasted crabs. It has a rich brown 
color and a spicy, enticing smell. Grandfather 
lifts it to his lips and heartily wishes the company 
a merry Christmas week and a glad New Year. 
Then the bowl is passed down the table for the 
family to do likewise. Some make little speeches 
when the bowl comes to them, others sing short 
carols, or quote Christmas texts. The shy ones 
merely kiss the bowl and pass it on. 

After dinner the room is cleared, as on the 
night before, but this time there are games in- 
stead of dancing. Shoe the wild mare, snap- 
dragon, and blind-man’s-buff are the favorites. 


JACK AND BETTY IN ENGLAND 103 

with a trial now and then at a tub of bobbing ap- 
ples, by way of diversion. The revel ends in a 
grand masquerade, for which the attic stores of 
bygone costumes are pressed into service. Jack 
and Grandfather are fond of appearing as boon 
companions, in powdered wigs, black velvet 
knee-breeches, gay waistcoats, and silken dinner 
jackets, with bright-colored stockings and slippers 
fastened with silver buckles. 

Jack and Betty have gay times, too, at Hal- 
lowe’en. For in their land at this season, you 
know, witches and hobgoblins really walk abroad I 
Those who wish may question them as to the fu- 
ture, and whatever they promise will surely come 
to pass ! But few are those brave enough to try 
the experiment. As a rule, bonfires are kindled 
everywhere, for red is a color particularly detested 
by the witches and they will not come near it. 
Nuts and apples figure in the merriment, and the 
occasion is sometimes spoken of as “ Nutcracker’s 
Night.” 

The children have cousins living at a certain 
dreamy old town in the Berkshires, where the 
people are fond of observing old customs. Jack 
and Betty like to go there for “ Oak Apple Day.” 
This occurs on May 29th, the anniversary of 


104 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

Prince Charlie’s escape from his enemies. Of 
course you know about the Bonnie Prince? You 
remember how he once took refuge in an oak tree 
and remained hidden securely in its thick, screen- 
ing branches, while his enemies beat the woods 
all about to catch him. Early in the morning of 
the eventful day, the children are off in high glee 
to gather branches of oak and hawthorn. And 
such loads as they carry back to the village I 
Houses and shops are festooned with branches 
and garlands of green ; long streamers of green 
are stretched across the streets here and there; 
flags, gilded oak-apples, and gay ribbons stream 
gayly in the breeze. How the youngsters work 
and laugh and shout ! At noon there is a great 
May-pole dance on the green, with the effigy of 
the Bonnie Prince crowning the pole. In the 
morning every one wears sprigs of oak, in the 
afternoon they are decked with ash. If any one 
loses his badge of loyalty, or dares to appear 
without it, he is soundly pinched and otherwise 
ill-treated by the merrymakers. Such sport as it 
all is ! At night every one is too tired for any- 
thing, and they rest contentedly about a great 
camp-fire, telling tales and singing merry songs. 


Thorwald, the Eskimo 

Thorwald and his sister Nanseen are Eskimo 
children. They live far away in the very north- 
ern part of frozen Greenland. They have but 
one name. It is all people need in that land. 
There are no churches, no schools, no doctors, 
lawyers, or merchants ; no money, jewelry, or 
timepieces ; not an axe, spade, or hammer ; no 
knives, forks, or spoons ; no bread, no cloth, no 
books ; and indeed none of the thousand and 
one things we consider necessary. There is not 
enough wood to make even so small a thing as a 
match ! Their clothes are made of fur, with fish- 
bone needles, and thread from the sinews of the 
reindeer. 

Their house is built of snow. It is shaped very 
much like the half of an egg. It is about sixteen 
feet across, fur-lined all about, and carpeted with 
a double thickness of fur. The doorway is cov- 
ered by a heavy fur curtain which was fastened in 
place by heating it thoroughly and then letting 
it freeze into the snow. Outside of the door is a 
I os 


io6 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


long narrow passageway, just about high enough 
for one of you children to stand in. Near the 
outer end is a sharp turn to keep the wind from 
blowing in. 

The Eskimos very seldom have a fire, even 
when the weather gets to eighty or ninety below 
zero. You see they have nothing to burn but 
meat and moss, and this is food for themselves 
and the reindeers. There is a fireplace in the 
center of the house. The bottom is a large flat 
stone with other stones piled about the edge to 
keep the fire from getting into the room. The 
Eskimo eats his food raw, and as the fire does 
not give out much heat, its only real use is to 
give light and to make the house more cheerful. 
When there is no fire it is very dark in the room. 

Thorwald and Nanseen have little chance to 
romp and play when it is so cold that they have 
to stay in the snow house. During the coldest 
weather they have to sit quietly with folded arms. 
They cannot even amuse themselves by telling 
stories and riddles as you would do. They have 
not much imagination, and even if they could 
think up things they would have few words in 
which to tell them. The Eskimo language is 
very brief. There are so many things of which 



ESKIMO MOTHER AND CHILD 




THORWALD, THE ESKIMO 


107 


they have never heard. If you were to talk 
about trees, flowers, and running streams, books 
or lessons, a painting, a piano, or music they 
would stare at you in wonder. Little Thorwald 
and Nanseen eat when they are hungry, sleep 
when they are sleepy, and get through the long 
hours in a very contented fashion. 

The night and day is of equal length where 
they live. Each is six months long. Just think 
of living for six months without once seeing the 
sun 1 But it is not dark. For the moon and 
stars give their light and the beautiful Northern 
Lights are nearly always dancing and leaping 
about. The Eskimos really prefer the night to 
the day. For when the sun shines it glistens so 
brightly upon the snow that it makes them snow- 
blind. It is impossible to hunt and they dare not 
go far from their villages. They try to store up 
enough food in their ice caves to last them 
through the summer; just as we store away food 
to keep us through the winter. 

An Eskimo writer tells us that “ The great 
event in our family life is the dog-sleigh ride. 
When father told us we could go, we came as 
near dancing and clapping our hands for joy as 
Eskimo children ever do. But we did not have 


io8 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


a fine cutter with large horses and shining bells. 
Sometimes the sled would be made of a wide 
piece of bone from the jaws of a whale, one end 
of which turned up like a runner. But more fre- 
quently it would be either a skin of some animal 
laid flat on the ground, or a great frozen fish cut 
open at the back and turned right over. I never 
saw such a fish in this country or in Iceland, so 
I cannot tell what kind of a fish it was. Our sled 
was drawn by dogs of about the size of shepherd 
dogs. They have short, straight ears, and their 
noses are very sharp and pointed. They are 
very strong and have heavy coats of long hair, 
which often drag upon the snow. They are usu- 
ally of a dark gray color. Our dogs were very 
useful to us in other ways than drawing our 
sleighs, for they were very good to hunt. They 
helped to kill the polar bear, and to find the seal 
and walrus.” 


Cosette and Louis of Brittany 

COSETTE and Louis D’Orne live in Brittany. 
Perhaps you have never heard of this country, 
Brittany is a bleak peninsula, jutting out from 
the northwest corner of France, and washed on 
one side by the English Channel and on the 
other by the Bay of Biscay. The Bretons are 
a silent fisherfolk, who get their living almost 
entirely by the sea. Their “ oyster farms ” head 
the list of the odd and interesting farms of the 
world. 

Brittany is called the ‘‘ Land of Pardons.*^ 
Why ? Let us plan to go to Plougastel, a little 
village not far from Brest, in time for the Pardon 
of St. Johns, which is held every year on June 24th. 
We find the people gathered at the little church 
to do penance for their sins, and one look at their 
pure, honest faces tells -us how earnest is the 
occasion. We wonder what sins they can have 
committed I Certainly, nothing very bad ; their 
lives are so simple. Here comes a little maid. 

Perhaps she will tell us why her eyes are gem- 
109 


no BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


ming with tears and her lip trembles so pitifully ; 
but no, she only shakes her head and buries her 
face in the voluminous ruffles of her wide cape 
collar. Perhaps she made away with the con- 
tents of the cooky jar! But do they have cookies 
in Brittany? Probably not. Perhaps — whisper 
it low — perhaps she may have told a lie — just 
a very little lie, you know, the kind grand- 
mother forgivingly calls a prevarication.” Any- 
way, whatever the sin, we are very sure that she 
is sorry I 

Did you ever see quainter costumes ? All the 
women, the little girls, and even the babies, wear 
charming white head-dresses, with long filmy 
streamers. Look at this Brittany belle I And 
that one and that one I Their costumes are as 
brilliant and full of contrast as a cloud of butter- 
flies. All wear very full skirts and dainty silken 
aprons of lavender, cream, pink, or green, beauti- 
fully embroidered. Their bodices are of velvet, 
tight-fitting, and ablaze in front with the richest, 
heaviest embroidery — the work of old men. Many 
of the girls wear cape collars, like the one we 
noted, others have white collars reaching to the 
waist, bib-apron style. The men wear baggy 
grey or blue trousers, short jackets, embroidered 


COSETTE AND LOUIS OF BRITTANY iii 


vests, and shovel beaver hats with two long black 
velvet ribbons dangling down the back. 

The women of the neighboring towns of Pont 
TAbbi and Quimper wear a most remarkable 
head-dress. It is made up of a tight brown 
straw cap, fitting closely over the crown and 
forehead, with odd black velvet earmuffs and 
bands, and long white streamers. Pont TAbbi 
also has ** an amusing side-show to its pardons.’* 
This is the marriage mart. Young women desir- 
ing husbands pose against the churchyard fence^ 
and the “ lovelorn swains ” march up and down 
the line making their choice with sheepish gravity, 
A double ceremony in church and town hall fol- 
lows. Then the newly-weds and their friends en- 
joy a dance in front of the cathedral, to the music 
of bagpipes I How they keep step to the villain- 
ous skirl is a mystery ! But the French are born 
dancers. They join hands and circle about the 
bride and groom in an interesting ring-around-a- 
rosy fashion, with a pleasing, exceedingly lively 
step. When the dance is over, the merrymakers 
form in a procession, and the pipes lead off to the 
home of the bride. Here they have a second 
dance, and then all go in to partake of the wed- 
ding feast. 


1 12 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


We find Cosette and Louis living in an un- 
speakably dirty one-room house, in company with 
a pet pig and the chickens. The floor is the 
ground, the roof is of thatch, and there is a huge 
fireplace, full of cranes and hooks and spits. The 
beds are the queerest we have yet seen. They 
are odd little closets, built above roomy chests 
where the precious costumes for f^tes and par- 
dons are kept. Cosette shows us how she gets 
into hers. She climbs up on the chest and 
scrambles in at the opening. One great feather 
bed forms her mattress, another is her covers. 
When she is settled to her liking, she draws shut 
the sliding wooden doors. We wonder how she 
manages to sleep all night without suffocating 1 
Surely such a bed is as unhygienic as possible, and 
yet look at Cosette. It would be difficult to find 
a sturdier, hardier little girl. Perhaps her life by 
day makes up for it. She is out every moment 
in the open helping gather fish or seaweed, or 
perhaps “ yoked ” with Louis, she is doing her 
share in pulling the harrow, in order that the 
field may be smoothed for sowing. Few of the 
Brittany peasants keep horses. Their farms are 
too small and they cannot afford them. 

Louis tells us that it is the custom in Brittany to 


COSETTE AND LOUIS OF BRITTANY 113 

have the houses blessed quite often. Sometimes 
the devil possesses a house, and a powerful priest 
is summoned to drive him out. He shuts himself 
in an upper chamber, and wrestles with the evil 
one, until in an unwary moment a black animal, 
usually a dog, passes the window. Then the 
priest skillfully casts his stole down about the 
creature’s neck, and in some mysterious fashion 
thrusts the devil upon it. The possessed animal 
is led to a forsaken quarry, or hollow. The 
priest walks around it in a wide circle, command- 
ing, “Here shalt thou henceforth dwell.” And the 
evil one slinks from the animal into the refuge 
provided, leaving all in peace ! 

One day as we are helping Cosette hunt for a 
much-prized handkerchief which she has lost, we 
hear her saying over and over again, “ Oh, good 
St. Anthony, help me find it I ” And then, “ Help 
me find it, dear St. Anthony, and I will light two 
candles in your honor.” We ask what she means, 
and find that St. Anthony presides in heaven in 
the interests of lost property. All who humbly 
petition him will be lucky in their search I 

Louis has a great deal to say about his cousins 
who live far to the south, in the sandy marshes of 
Landes. Here the boy shepherds hustle about on 


1 14 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

stilts, five feet or more in the air. How odd they 
must look 1 Louis says it is great sport, though 
he nearly broke his head learning to walk that 
way. The stilts are fastened to the leg just below 
the knee, the foot resting in a stirrup. Each one 
carries a staff as a sort of “ balancer ’^ and a prop 
when he wishes to rest. The boys stand in this 
fashion very comfortably for hours at a time, knit- 
ting, playing the fife, or just visiting. Louis says 
his Cousin Margot trudges off to market on stilts, 
with a basket of eggs on her arm, as sure-footedly 
as possible. Why not? She has used stilts all 
her life. The ground is so wet and marshy most 
of the time that it is impossible to walk with speed 
any other way. 

Cosette does not like the Country of Stilts. She 
had far rather visit her friends in the foot-hills back 
of Cannes, “ the Millionaire’s Paradise,” in south- 
ern France. Here the boys and girls are busy in 
the most delightful occupation imaginable — gath- 
ering roses, sometimes as many as a hundred and 
fifty tons in a single morning ! Everywhere there 
are acres and acres of roses built up in terraces. 
These are called “perfumery farms.” Wouldn’t 
you like to visit one of them ? Cosette is quite sure 
there is not a sweeter-smelling spot in all the world I 


COSETTE AND LOUIS OF BRITTANY 115 

“You should visit our cousins, Estelle and 
Cecile D’Arthaud, in Normandy,’' says Louis. 
“ They are not humble folks like us. They own 
quite a large farm, or orchard, I should say, of 
cider apples. The house is in the very center of 
the place. Such a charming little house ! Its 
walls are built of a sticky, clayey soil, that dries 
rock-hard in the sun. The roof is a thatch of 
straw, all bound together in a mat of moss, flow- 
ers and trailing vines. There are climbing roses 
and vines over the porch and about the windows. 
A hedge of scented haws goes all around the farm. 
At the front is an endless procession of tree sen- 
tries, as far as one can see, pointing out the royal 
highway. And you never saw such a road ! It is 
as hard and smooth as a floor. Not far away is 
the city of Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned 
at the stake for a witch. Poor girl, when she had 
done so much for the Prince, too, helping him 
drive out the English, and winning his coronation 
at Rheims I You know the story, signora? 
There are reminders of the maid everywhere in 
Normandy. — ’Tis a land far different from Brit- 
tany, and yet we Bretons love our own home 
best.” 


Two Little German Girls 

In a quaint old German town, not far from the 
Black Forest and the castled Rhine, is the home 
of our little friends Grethel and Freda Cronebacht. 
You never saw such an odd house as theirs 1 It 
is a narrow, flat-chested, three-storied affair, front- 
ing directly upon the pavement, with the upper 
story projecting out slightly from the others, like a 
bracketed shelf. Three rows of windows stretch 
across its face, one above another, save in the lower 
right hand corner, where there are two great pan- 
eled, richly-carved doors. Every inch of space 
not occupied by the windows is carved with elab- 
orate figures — a mute testimony of the taste, hu- 
mor, and enterprise of the burghers three centuries 
ago. At the base of the “ shelf,” worked out in 
great letters along its entire length, is the motto : 
“ God be praised for what we have and what we 
are.” 

Inside, the house is beautifully clean. The floors 
are of parquet, with a few rugs here and there. 
The furniture is chosen with the idea of use and 

ii6 


TWO LITTLE GERMAN GIRLS 117 

comfort. The stoves are great structures of brick 
and porcelain, reaching from the floor nearly to 
the ceiling, and fashioned much the same as the 
fire-brick stoves of Russia. Grethel and Freda 
have rolls and a glass of milk for their “ first break- 
fast.’’ Their “ second breakfast,” at half-past ten, 
is a luncheon of sausage or egg sandwiches. 
Dinner is served at one o’clock. There is soup 
and several kinds of meat and vegetables, with no 
end of fruit preserves and odd combinations, which 
none but a German cook could make. At four 
o’clock coffee and cake are served. Supper comes 
about eight o’clock. There is cold meat, rye bread, 
fish salad, and milk, with tea or beer for the elders. 

There are many things which Grethel and 
Freda and the town people all over Germany 
dare not do. What would you say, I wonder, if 
you could not play the piano before seven in the 
morning, nor after nine at night ? Suppose you 
could not water your window garden, excepting 
between the hours of four and five in the morn- 
ing ? Suppose you never dared to take a bath at 
night ; or to shout or whistle in the street ? Sup- 
pose you could not ride in the cab or motor bus 
that you wished, but had to take the one the po- 
liceman chose? Suppose your mother had to 


ii8 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


employ the policeman’s aid to hire a maid ; and 
that you had to have his permission, if the family 
wished to move? 

Everywhere in Germany the finger of the law 
is felt. The whole country moves like a machine, 
and the police are seldom out of sight. If we 
were to visit Grethel and Freda in person, the 
police would call upon us at once, and we would 
have to furnish them with a statement as to who 
we are, what our business is, and when we intend 
to leave 1 

Not far away, at an important point on the 
Rhine, is one of the large fortifications for which 
Germany is famous. Everywhere there are sol- 
diers, and ever since they can remember Grethel 
and Freda have been wakened in the morning by 
the bugle. They are used to military bands play- 
ing in and out of season, and to the many ma- 
neuvers and mock battles in which the infantry 
and cavalry are constantly being drilled. 

Their brothers, Peter and Hendrick, are in the 
army. A small brother, Hubert, is a chimney 
sweep. If you were to meet him coming from 
work, you would probably mistake him for a 
negro. But the black comes off after much brisk 
scrubbing, and Hubert does not at all mind the 



© Everyland Magazine 


GERMAN SCHOOL CHILDREN 




TWO LITTLE GERMAN GIRLS 119 

soaping and scouring. He is a German. He 
comes to the supper table with his round face 
rosy and glowing, and his sand-colored hair wet 
and close-plastered to his head. 

Louise and Gretchen, the two older sisters of 
our little friends, work in a great toy factory in a 
neighboring town. This factory is a regular 
fairyland I Floor above floor is filled with toys 
of every description. There are motor cars, 
ships, railroads, engines, and whole trains of 
cars, complete even to the Pullmans and the 
darky porters. One may see all sorts of me- 
chanical and electrical inventions, from the latest 
graphophone triumph to the newest thing in 
wireless telegraphy. There are dollies of every 
sort and the most wonderful sets of housekeeping 
things. In short, almost everything that grown- 
ups use is found here in toy size. Grethel and 
Freda seize upon every chance to visit the place, 
coming home with eyes “ round as saucers, and 
tongues loose at both ends I ” Winter evenings 
the whole Cronebacht family do “piece work'' 
for the factory. Usually the boys put doll furni- 
ture together ; the girls do the painting and deco- 
rating and work on dolls “ between times.’^ 

Such fun as Grethel and Freda and their little 


120 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


friends have during the holidays ! For weeks be- 
fore Christmas the streets look like great fairs 
embowered in green. Toys and candies are 
sold from booths and wagons as well as in the 
shops. Children are everywhere, laughing and 
singing, and holding out their hands for pennies 
that are waiting to be dropped into them. 
Christmas Eve they indulge in all sorts of pranks. 
Mysterious knockers ” race here and there, rap- 
ping at all doors that are closed. Others play at 
a game they call “ Weylubort.” House doors 
are opened without ceremony and little wheels, 
all covered and spangled with gilt paper stars, 
are rolled suddenly in, and the roller endeavors 
to get away before he is discovered. At intervals 
the merry youngsters, here and there all over 
the land, beat drums to keep the wolves away 1 
Nothing must interfere with Santa’s journey. 

Grethel and Freda make the decoration of the 
Cronebacht Christmas tree their special business. 
Such festoons of pop-corn, berries, and glittering 
tinsel as they fashion I Such stars and anchors, 
crosses and angels I Such hosts of little ginger- 
bread figures I Such an array of glittering, 
many-colored candles! The last are mother’s 
contribution. All the family smuggle in gifts, 


TWO LITTLE GERMAN GIRLS 121 


little things of small value usually, but showing 
the heart and thought of the giver. 

Just before getting into bed on Christmas Eve, 
Grethel and Freda put lighted candles in their 
windows, so that the little Christ Child and his 
mother may not lose their way in the snow. At 
midnight everywhere the bells begin to chime, 
and if there is an unlighted window in any German 
home, it is quickly glowing. Even the church 
windows are lighted. Christmas day the children 
trudge proudly about, eager to show their gifts 
to all who will look. Nor does the Christmas joy 
end with the day. All through the holiday week 
they have the most delightful times, and every 
night the tree is lighted, that its cheer and radi- 
ance may be spread. 

In some parts of Germany, St. Nicholas is an 
angel in disguise. He goes about the town from 
house to house, clothed in rags, and bearing a 
pack on his back. He gives a loud knock at the 
door and asks, “ Have the children been good ? ” 
If the answer is “ Yes,” he leaves fruit, candy and 
other gifts. If the answer is No,” he leaves a 
stick. In other parts of the country, just as the 
candles on the tree are beginning to flicker out, 
a loud rap is heard at the door. Some one flies 


122 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


to open it, and a bundle is thrown into the room. 
It contains gifts for every one in the home, the 
servants as well as the family. 

Easter, in the Cronebacht home, is welcomed 
almost as eagerly as Christmas, for the Easter 
hare is very generous in Germany. For weeks 
before the great event the shops are in readiness. 
Such hosts of eggs ! Eggs of all sizes and colors ; 
eggs of sugar and of chocolate; eggs of candy, 
all decorated with ribbons and pictures. Broken 
egg-shells, with fluffy little chicks peeping out. 
Egg-shell carriages drawn by goats and driven 
by baby rabbits ; hare mothers rocking their little 
ones in egg-shell cradles ; toy wheelbarrows filled 
with candy eggs and trundled by rabbits ; rabbits 
keeping watch over great nests of eggs, and so 
on without number. On the street corners one 
may buy the most delicious candy eggs, chickens, 
and hares. Here, too, are no end of hard-boiled 
eggs, in every imaginable color and pattern. 

What do the rabbit and the hare have to do 
with Easter? I am sure I do not know, but 
Grethel says that the hares lay the Easter eggs. 
She is very certain about it, so it must be true ! 

“Why,” asks she, “haven't you heard about 
the good duchess who went with her two chil- 


TWO LITTLE GERMAN GIRLS 123 


dren, long ago, to live in a part of Germany 
where no one had ever heard of chickens ? The 
children grew so hungry for eggs that the mother 
sent her servant to town to bring out a coop full 
of hens. 

When the man returned, the simple country 
people followed him, surprised and delighted. 
They stroked the birds, and marveled at the eggs 
which the children brought them, and all the time 
the good duchess knew just how they longed to 
taste one. So she began straightway to save 
eggs, and on Easter Monday all the people were 
invited to her home. While the refreshments 
were being made ready, she sent the children to 
make nests of twigs and mosses and hide them 
in the bushes. Later, after they had eaten a 
wonderful lunch of eggs and little cakes, the 
youngsters went back to their nests. And what 
do you think they found ? 

“ In each nest lay five beautiful eggs, — two red, 
two yellow, and one as blue as the sky. And the 
Easter hare had laid them! They were sure of 
it, because a hare jumped from one of the nests 
just as the children reached it.^’ 

Doubtless it all happened just as Grethel says ! 
Anyway, since that distant Easter time, the chil- 


124 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


dren in Germany have never failed to make nests 
for the Easter hare. And seldom have they been 
disappointed. Often, too, they find sugar eggs 
and dainty little egg-shaped boxes filled with 
candy in the nests. In many places, the children 
go from house to house singing Easter hymns 
and receiving gifts of candy and eggs. 


A Visit to Hawaii 

The Hawaiian Islands became a part of Uncle 
Sam’s domain in 1898. They lie thousands of 
miles away in the Pacific Ocean, near the Tropic 
of Cancer, and are about one-third of the distance 
from America to Asia. (See if you can find them 
on the map.) Being at one of the chief ‘'cross 
roads of the sea,” they are valuable not only as a 
coaling station but as a center of trade and com- 
merce. There are about twenty-eight islands in 
all scattered from east to west over the ocean for / 
hundreds of miles. Some of them are mere dots 
on the sea, seldom, if ever, visited by man, a^d 
valuable only for their deposits of fertilizer — the 
guano from thousands of sea birds which make 
them a roosting place. There are eight inhabited 
islands. These lie quite close together, covering 
a distance about as far as from Washington to 
Boston. Hawaii, the largest island, is nearly the 
size of the state of Connecticut. 

The Hawaiian country is called “ The Land of 
the Rainbow,” because nearly every day there is 
125 


126 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


a little shower and a rainbow. And it is certainly 
a delightful country in which to live. There are 
said to be not more than eight days in a year 
without sunshine, and there are blooming plants, 
ripening fruit and grain the year around. The 
trade winds ^ and ocean currents regulate the tem- 
perature and the hottest days seldom go above 
eighty. The land is made up of high mountains 
seamed with valleys and gorges, some of which 
are more than a thousand feet deep. 

Our little cousins here belong to the brown 
race — happy, dark-haired, dark-eyed people, with 
soft, musical voices. The women wear “ Mother 
Hubbard” gowns of cool, light material. Men, 
women, and children go barefoot, with garlands 
of flowers about their necks and on their hats. 
But we see more white people than brown. For 
the Hawaiians were long ago converted to Chris- 
tianity, and have always welcomed strangers to 
their shores, so that now there are five or six 
times as many foreigners, or the descendants of 
foreigners, as of the natives themselves. 

The capital city, Honolulu, is called “ The Para- 


1 The wind for a certain distance from the equator blows toward 
this hot belt throughout the year. These winds are called Trade 
Winds. 



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A VISIT TO HAWAII 


127 

dise of the Pacific.” And well does it deserve its 
name, with its wide streets, velvety lawns aflame 
with tropical plants and hedged with beautiful 
flowers, all under the shade of the royal palms 
and cocoanut trees. There are fine houses, and 
parks with beautiful walks and drives. The busi- 
ness buildings and government structures are 
quite like our own. Indeed we are told that 
most of the stores are owned and run by Amer- 
icans. This does not mean that the native 
Hawaiians are not capable and intelligent. Many 
of them belong to the learned professions, many 
more are so rich that trade is not a necessity. 
There are electric cars and the streets are lighted 
by electricity. All about floats the American flag, 
and we feel very much at home indeed. 

Hawaiian boys and girls go to school just as 
you do, and study from the same text-books. 
There are no really poor people here. Those of 
little means live in small frame houses with base- 
ments. Up-stairs is a parlor and bedroom fur- 
nished with straw carpets, chairs, and tables, and a 
good bed. But these are kept for company. The 
Hawaiians sleep on mats on the floor. They cook 
their food out-of-doors, and live outside nearly 
all the time. The Hawaiian would rather fish and 


128 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


swim than till his land, so he mostly rents it out 
to the thrifty Chinamen. The Hawaiian woman 
does not like to keep house, and often she sells 
flowers and keeps a Japanese or Chinese servant. 

On every street corner is one of these flower 
women. Quite often there is a whole group of 
them, sitting upon mats, braiding garlands and 
wreaths of flowers. And such flowers I Beauti- 
ful lilies, carnations, tuberoses, orchids, oleanders, 
and the wonderful night-blooming cereus. The 
flower sellers do a good business. We scarcely 
meet a person that does not wear flowers in one 
way or another. Even the ponies and carriages 
are decorated. 

It is a common sight to meet a little Hawaiian 
boy or girl all decorated with flowers and carry- 
ing a pig curled up in their arms. If you ques- 
tion them, they will tell you about the pet pony 
at home. Nearly every child has one. Jules 
Kilaue (Ki-lau-e), one of our little friends, has a 
pony named Brownie, after the little brown people 
who it is claimed were the ancestors of the Ha- 
waiians. And, by the way, Jules can tell you 
some wonderful stories about these same brown- 
ies. All the little Hawaiian boys and girls can. 
They just love to tell stories ! 


A VISIT TO HAWAII 


129 


And they are fond of walking about on stilts. 
Such antics as they cut ! Running, dancing, and 
swinging about until we wonder that they do not 
break their necks. They play ball, too, but not 
on stilts, though their game is different from ours. 
They catch the balls on pointed sticks. And they 
can swim like fishes I Often they swim to school, 
carrying their clothes in one hand and paddling 
with the other. They love to ride on boards in 
the surf, and scream with delight as the waves 
toss them about as though they were riding a 
rocking-horse. The Hawaiian children are good 
musicians and sweet singers, and they all know 
how to dance. 

The homes of most of the country boys and 
girls are curious-looking grass huts. There is 
but one room. Their mother cooks vegetables, 
meat and fish in an oven made by digging a hole 
in the ground and walling it with stones. An 
arch is built over the top, and a fire made inside. 
When the stones are red hot, the arch is torn 
down and the food, wrapped in banana or ti 
leaves, is laid in the bottom of the pit and care- 
fully covered with green grass and a layer of 
earth. Then water is poured into a little hole 
which is left in the center and another covering 


130 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

of grass and earth is added. As soon as the 
water reaches the hot stones, steam is formed and 
this cooks the food. 

Hawaiian children, and their elders too, are 
very fond of poi. Indeed it is a part of every 
meal and as necessary to them as bread is to us, 
or as rice is to the Chinese and Japanese. Poi is 
a sort of paste or mush made from the taro, a root 
much like the sweet potato. It is usually served 
in little cocoanut bowls and eaten with the fingers. 
We are told that it takes considerable skill to do 
it politely. It looks simple enough. We watch 
the little Hawaiians deftly dipping in one or two 
fingers of the right hand and eating with enjoy- 
ment. But our first attempt is not very successful. 
Nor does it taste good to us, for poi, like olives, 
requires a trained taste. It is a combination not 
unlike potato, sweet potato, and turnip rolled into 
one and slightly soured. The taro baked in its 
natural state is quite agreeable ; so, too, are a 
variety of foods cooked in cocoanut milk, the favor- 
ite being chicken, garnished with taro tops, which 
are somewhat like spinach. Cocoanut shells, koa 
bowels, and ti leaves serve the Hawaiians for dishes. 
The supply is renewed at each meal, so dish-wash- 
ing has little terrors for our brown friends. 


A VISIT TO HAWAII 


131 

Everywhere are great fields of pineapples. 
How delicious the fruit looks I Rosy, yellow- 
tinged, and so full of juice that the dead ripe ones 
can be scooped with a spoon. Here on the left is 
a banana grove. Over yonder is a clump of 
orange trees, here are apple and pear trees, and a 
little farther on is a coffee plantation. Many boys 
and girls are at work here setting out tiny coffee 
plants. They grow very slowly, coming in full 
bearing when they are five years old. Coffee 
trees have shining green leaves and white blos- 
soms, which load the air with perfume. The fruit 
is like a bright red cherry, save that, instead of a 
stone, there are one or two seeds surrounded by 
pulp. These seeds are the coffee beans. The 
ripe fruit is shaken down on mats and spread to 
dry in the sun, after which it is run through ma- 
chines which shell out the beans. A strong 
vigorous tree will produce three or four pounds of 
* beans, but the average yield is less than one 
pound per tree. Did you ever see any coffee 
beans before they were roasted ? 

The Hawaiian Islands have some of the best 
sugar lands in the world. How the children love 
the great juicy canes ! They suck them just as 
you do stick candy. Cane is planted by cutting 


132 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

green stalks into pieces of a joint or more each 
and laying them end to end in the furrows. In a 
short time young sprouts shoot up from each 
joint. Cane grows very rapidly, reaching a 
height of eight or ten feet. The boys and girls 
think it is great fun to help strip off the leaves 
when the cane is ready to be cut. They like to 
race to the end of the row. It is a lark, also, to 
ride to the mill on the great sweet-smelling loads. 
The stump of the cane stalk left in the ground 
will sprout and produce a good second crop, but 
for the third crop a new start must be planted. 

There are many rice fields here and there, 
dotted with the busy Chinese and Japanese plod- 
ding along with their old-world machinery. 
Their “horse’’ is a curious-looking buffalo, which 
seems very slow, strong and willing. There are 
oleanders as big as trees and tall masses of be- 
gonias with large beautiful leaves. Tree ferns 
grow from twenty to thirty feet high, and the 
mango trees add wonderful bits of color, with 
their rich glossy foliage and golden fruit. Ginger 
plants ten to fifteen feet high, crowned with 
creamy, wax-like flowers, grace the edges of 
the streams. All about grow great clumps of 
bamboo, a giant grass from which the natives 


A VISIT TO HAWAII 


133 


make lovely hats, mats, and baskets. There are 
only a few birds. They wear sober coats and do 
not seem to sing. We are told there are no wild 
animals, excepting a few deer, goats, hogs and 
dogs. 

Kilauea, the greatest volcano in the world, is 
on the island of Hawaii. It has a terrible crater 
of melted lava eight miles in circumference, which 
the natives call “ The House of Everlasting Burn- 
ing.” It was here, according to tradition, that 
Pele, the fire goddess, used to dwell. Whenever 
she “ came down from her home ” ruin followed 
in her steps, and it was customary to frequently 
make her offerings of fruit, pigs, and poultry. If 
she became particularly ‘"angry,” the king ordered 
a number of babies and children thrown into the 
crater to “ quiet ” her. 

We are told that there is some “barking sand ” 
on the island of Kauai. Did you ever hear of 
such a thing? When this strange sand is placed 
in a bag and tossed about, it makes a sound like 
the bark of a dog ! Would it not be fine to have 
a bag of it ? 


Azim, the Hindoo Lad 

Little Azim lives in the “ Land of Enchant- 
ment.” Do you know what land that is ? It is 
the land of India. And it well deserves the 
name. It is a land of myths, legends, and the 
most wonderful stories, and we meet them on 
every hand. The Hindoos worship gods and 
idols, and believe some very strange things. 

Azim’s home is in the odd little mountain town 
of Darjeerling. It is 7,000 feet higher than the 
city of Calcutta. All around it tower the giant 
Himalayas, some of them standing 20,000 feet 
higher. The market-place is full of interest for 
us. The shops are small booths, mostly built of 
mud, or just simply holes opening into a wall. 
Everything is spread out in full view, and the 
merchant squats on the floor beside his goods. 
Here comes a coolie, naked, save for a dirty 
turban and a wisp of cotton cloth round the loins. 
He is a street sprinkler. And such a funny water- 
ing pot as he has ! It is a pig’s skin, tied at the 
legs, and open at the neck, from which comes a 
134 



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AZIM, THE HINDOO LAD 


135 


stream of water. When the '‘pot” is empty, he 
fills it from a large bag, which he has thrown 
across the back of a bullock, that he leads along. 
A bullock is very much like one of our oxen, only 
it has a hump between its shoulders. 

Yonder in an open space is a snake charmer 
squatting beside his cobras. He plays on an odd 
pipe, and puts his venomous pets through all 
sorts of tricks. Here is a conjurer or magician 
making a mango plant to spring up and put 
forth fruit from an apparently barren heap of 
dirt Beyond is a group of coolies, squatting on 
the ground, with their chins on their knees, wait- 
ing to be hired. Here and there are the natives 
in their gay robes and turbans and caps of every 
hue, making the street one live note of color. 
Here, too, are people of every tongue and nation. 
The babble of their voices is as astonishing as the 
mingling of colors and costumes. The Thibetan 
women, from over the mountains, interest us 
most, because of their love for ornaments and 
their many “ good luck ” chains and amulets. 

At one of the market stalls we buy a tiny 
“ prayer wheel.” It is a model of the large one 
used by the priests in the temple. Little Azim, 
who is our guide, tells us if we turn the wheel in 


136 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

the right way, it will say prayers, but if we do 
not, we will get curses instead. 

Then it is time for dinner. We have a number 
of odd dishes. There is a plate of fowl, which 
tastes like turkey, but Azim says it is wild pea- 
cock. There are mangoes, plantain, guava jelly, 
rice, and curry, and several other things, new to 
us. The dinner makes us feel sleepy, so we rest 
awhile, then sally forth again. 

At the door of a house not far away, we see a 
man with a shaven head, sitting most solemnly. 
Azim nudges us and whispers that it is a Brah- 
min sitting in dharna. ** What isdharna?” we 
ask. 

“Some one has a quarrel with the owner of 
the house,” says Azim. “ He has hired this 
Brahmin to come and sit on the doorstep, with- 
out food or drink, until his enemy will relent and 
do him justice.” 

“And will he do this?” we inquire, surprised. 

“Yes, indeed. It would never do to let the 
holy man starve to death ; and he will not touch 
food until the wrong is righted. The sin would 
lie upon the head of the owner of the house for- 
ever, and his fate in the next world would be'ter- 
rible.” 


AZIM, THE HINDOO LAD 


137 


We now become aware of a great blowing of 
trumpets and beating of drums and a hideous 
racket, generally. 

“ Come on I ” cries Azim, excitedly. It is a 
Hindoo funeral company I ” 

We hasten forward and are soon a part of the 
funeral procession. They go to one of “ the 
burning ghats,” outside the town. Here a piece 
of money is put into the mouth of the corpse, to 
pay his way to the other world, and the body is 
sprinkled with the “ holy ” Ganges water ; the 
mourners gather near, and the barber comes 
forward to shave the head and face of the near- 
est male relative and to help him put on a new 
white robe. Then the corpse is thrown upon the 
lighted pyre. The ashes will later be gathered 
up and thrown into the river. 

Azim’s father is the barber ; and Azim tells us 
that, when he is grown, he, too, will be a barber. 
Boys in India must always follow the trade of 
their father, whether they like it or not. 

A Legend of the Geloori 
Do you know the little striped chipmunk which 
lives in our woods ? He has a cousin in far-off 
India called the geloori. 


138 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

It is said that the stripes came on the back of 
the geloori in a wonderful way. One day the 
great Siva saw one of these little chipmunks on 
the seashore. He was dipping his bushy tail into 
the sea, and shaking out the water on the shore. 
And oh, how fast he worked! Twenty times a 
minute, at least, the heavy brush dipped into the 
ocean, and the sand was wet all about. 

In wonder, Siva said : “ What are you doing, 
little foolish, gray geloori? Why do you tire 
yourself with such hard labor?” 

The geloori answered : “ I cannot stop, great 
Siva. The storm blew down the palm tree, where 
I built my nest. See 1 the tree has fallen seaward, 
and the nest lies in the water ; my wife and pretty 
children are in it ; I fear that it will float away. 
Therefore all day and all night I must dip the 
water from the sea. I hope soon to bail it dry. 
I must save my darlings even if I spoil my tail.” 

Siva stooped and with his great hand stroked 
the little squirrel. On the geloori’s soft fur from 
his nose to the end of his tail, in the path of 
Siva’s fingers, appeared four green stripes. They 
were marks of the great god’s love and approval. 

Then Siva raised his hand high in the air, and 
the water rolled back from the shore. Safe among 


AZIM, THE HINDOO LAD 139 

the rocks and seaweeds, the palm tree lay on dry 
land. 

The little chipmunk hastened to it, with his 
tail high in the air. He found his wife and chil- 
dren dry and well in their nest of woven grass- 
blades. As they greeted him joyfully and began 
recounting the tale of their adventure, he noticed 
with delight that each smooth little back was 
striped with marks of Siva’s fingers, in exact 
counterpart to his own. 

This sign of love is still to be seen upon the 
backs of the chipmunks everywhere in India. 
That is the reason why the people reverence the 
geloori and never kill them. 


Little Fox 


Never was there a more interesting baby than 
Little Fox. His father was a great Indian chief, 
tall and heavily built, with sharp eyes and long 
black hair, gorgeously decorated with gay feath- 
ers. His mother pictured the babe grown up 
strong and fearless, like his father, cunning and 
shrewd as the animal whose name he bore. In 
imagination she heard just how admiringly the 
other braves would refer to him as The Fox, and 
most earnestly did she petition the Good Spirit to 
keep him from all harm, and to show her how to 
bring him up so that it might all come to pass. 

Most carefully she fashioned a wondrous cradle 
of wood for her little papoose. It was soft with 
sweet grass from the meadows, and gay with 
dyed turkey quills, shell beads, and rattles. All 
day it hung, like a stout little pouch, from the 
bough of the tree nearest to where the mother 
worked. Sometimes it was beside the field where 
she grew beans, squash, corn, and melons ; again 
it was near the camp-fire and the savory smell of 
140 



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© Lee Moorehouse 


INDIAN PAPOOSES 





LITTLE FOX 


141 

dinner; and sometimes, when the father was away 
hunting, fishing or fighting, it dipped and swayed 
from the low branches of the maple behind the 
wigwam, while the happy mother sat close at 
hand, singing a soft little cradle song, and em- 
broidering moccasins, or fashioning odd little 
garments of skins for sister Mimi. 

When the mother traveled about, the odd little 
cradle was strapped to her back. Wherever it 
was. Little Fox was well content. He soon 
learned that it did no good to cry. — A great 
chief must learn patience first of all. — The birds 
twittered around him and flitted close to his 
reaching hands, lulling him to sleep with their 
melodies ; the squirrels chattered and played tag 
in and out among the branches ; the balmy breezes 
softly kissed his dusky cheeks ; and there was so 
much to wonder about in the bright, beautiful 
world that he scarcely had time for crying. 

Sometimes sister Mimi came to play with him. 
But not often, for though she was but five years 
old, her little brown hands could do many things, 
and her twinkling feet saved mother many steps. 
She carried wood from the forest for the fire. She 
knew how to dip up water from the spring in the 
birch bark bucket. She helped to pound the 


142 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

corn, which the mother made into cakes and 
baked, all wrapped in leaves, in the hot ashes. 
In sugar season, she watched the sap and helped 
empty the pails. She was useful, too, in helping 
to boil the sweet juice down into maple sugar. 
She knew how to boil corn in lye made from 
wood ashes, and to wash it in many waters, rub- 
bing off the loosened skin with her chubby hands, 
till the delicious kernels of flaky hominy lay bare. 
At planting time, when the leaves of the white 
oak were the size of a mouse’s ear, she helped 
scratch the ground with a sharp clam shell, and 
dropped the seeds, with a fish buried in each hill 
for fertilizer. When the harvest was ready, she 
helped hide some of the corn away in secret places 
dug in the earth, that they might be sure of seed 
the next season. She watched her mother dress 
the skins and cook the meat and fish which her 
father brought home, and sometimes she helped 
with this, too. 

Little Fox did not often see the inside of the 
wigwam, but he was quite familiar with the out- 
side of it. I wonder if you ever saw a really true 
one? Nowadays the few Indians that are left live 
in wigwams made of canvas. The wigwam which 
sheltered Little Fox’s people was made of skins 


LITTLE FOX 


143 


and sheets of bark stretched tightly over long 
poles, after the fashion of wigwams before the 
white men overran the country and killed off the 
big game. The floor was of earth and was never 
swept. Instead of house cleaning, the family 
moved three times a year : in winter to the shel- 
ter of the forests, in spring to open places where 
crops could be grown, and in the autumn to the 
hunting grounds. 

Inside the wigwam, where Little Fox was carried 
on rainy days to feast his eyes on the strings of 
yellow squash, and the rows of red, white and 
blue corn, there was no furniture. A few mats, 
woven of coarse grass, spread down here and 
there, served as chairs. The beds were nothing 
but skins piled on the ground. A few ugly, 
misshapen wooden or earthen jars and stout 
baskets woven from bark stood here and there. 
They held the supplies of ground corn, hominy, 
maple sugar, dried fish and berries, nuts, and 
tobacco. On the wall were curious pictures em- 
broidered with beads and colored porcupine quills, 
deer heads, eagle claws, and fish nets woven from 
dried grasses. 

A truly delightful place it was to Little Fox, 
and his busy brown hands worked havoc there as 


144 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 

soon as he could toddle about on his unsteady 
legs. He tangled the fish net material ; broke a 
cherished gourd cup ; chipped some of the earth- 
enware which had taken so much time and pa- 
tience to make ; carried off a bundle of arrows, 
one by one ; and lost his father’s favorite pipe. 
Was he whipped for the mischief? No, indeed. 
He was to be a great warrior some day, and must 
never know fear. The mother just called him “a 
bad papoose,” and carried him off to play with 
Mimi and the neighboring children of the tribe. 
For the Indians, you know, always lived sociably 
together in clans or bands. 

Such times as Little Fox had when his short, 
weak legs grew sturdy and strong ! In and out 
here and there all over the village with his com- 
rades, playing leap frog, wolf, and crooked path. 
The latter was great sport. “ Each grasped with 
his right hand the belt cord of the one in front of 
him. Then off they moved in a slow trot, singing 
as they went. They trudged in and out among 
the trees, through the puddles of water, and 
around the wigwams. If some old woman was 
pounding her corn, the stumbling line hurried 
past her in a circle. Each left hand seized some 
corn until the squaw was out of patience. But 


LITTLE FOX 


145 

when she ran to catch them, they were off to the 
woods like squirrels.” ^ 

In the dusk of evening, in starlight and moon- 
light, and beside the camp-fire, the old grand- 
mothers held the little listeners breathless with the 
most wonderful stories of Nature. They learned of 
the sun, the most powerful spirit of the heavens, 
which controlled day and night, put out the stars, 
drove away the cold, made fertile the fields, and, 
in short, worked always as the red man’s guardian 
angel ; of the forces in the winds, the clouds, the 
stars, and the moon ; and the spirits which lurked 
in plants and animals. Like the little Hiawatha 
they 

Saw the rainbow in the heaven, 

In the eastern sky the rainbow ; 

Whispered, What is that, Nokomis?** 

And the good Nokomis answered : 

** 'Tis the heaven of flowers you see there, 

All the wild flowers of the forest, 

All the lilies of the prairie. 

When on earth they fade and perish, 

Blossom in that heaven above us.’* 

Winter was brought about by the Cold-Maker, 
the dreaded North Wind, who dwelt among ice- 
bergs and everlasting snow-drifts in the far North. 

* Burton’s “ Story of the Indians of New England.” 


146 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

He painted all the leaves with scarlet, red, and 
yellow in the autumn ; he froze the ponds, lakes, 
and rivers, and drove the birds to the southward ; 
he scurried about hither and thither, with his hair 
all snow-besprinkled and streaming behind him 
like a river, heaping snow-drifts all about, flap- 
ping the lodge curtains, and whistling down the 
smoke flues. The people were always happy 
when the warm South Wind, the Summer-Maker, 
came and wrestled with him and drove him away 
to the North land, to the kingdom of the White 
Rabbit. 

The wild West Wind was the great Father of 
the Winds of Heaven, and many were the mad 
pranks he played and the stories told about 
him. The most beautiful legend of the winds 
was that concerning Wabun, the East Wind, he 
whose silver arrows chased the dark o’er hill and 
valley and brought in the morning. It seemed 
that Wabun grew tired of dwelling alone in the 
eastern heavens, and, though the birds sang gayly 
to him, the flowers saluted him with sweet odors, 
and the forests and rivers shouted at his coming, 
none cheered him ; his heart grew heavy within 
him and he was sad indeed. Then, one morning, 
as he rustled earthward intent on his daily task, 


LITTLE FOX 


147 


his eyes fell upon a most lovely maiden gathering 
flags and rushes by the riverside. She seemed 
sad and lonely and gave him a sweet smile of 
welcome. Wabun was delighted and his heart 
went out toward her with love and longing. The 
next morning he rose earlier and hurried about 
his work, for he hoped to see the beautiful maid 
again. Sure enough she was waiting for him, 
and he smiled his sunniest smile straight into 
her trusting eyes of blue. Each morning Wabun 
wooed her with sunny glances and whispers of 
sweetest music, and then at last he caught her to 
his crimson bosom and bore her away to the 
heavens, where he placed her on his throne, the 
beautiful Star of the Morning. 

As soon as Little Fox grew old enough to man- 
age a tiny bow and arrow, his father took him in 
hand and taught him to shoot. A little later he 
was shown how to make his own bow and arrows 
and how to build a canoe of birch bark. He 
learned to paddle swiftly and silently up and 
down the streams, to swim like a fish, dive like a 
beaver, climb like a bear, and run like a deer. 
Often he played he was a fierce animal hid away 
in a hollow tree, and many a search his mother 
and Mimi had to find the truant. 


148 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

As he lived close to Nature, tramping about in 
forest and plain, Little Fox was unconsciously at- 
tending the Indian’s school. He 

Learned of every bird its language ; 

Learned their names and all their secrets ; 

How they built their nests in summer. 

Where they hid themselves in winter ; 

Talked with them where’er he met them. 

Called them Hiawatha’s Chickens.” 

Of all the beasts he learned their language; 

Learned their names and all their secrets ; 

How the beavers built their lodges ; 

Where the squirrels hid their acorns ; 

How the reindeer ran so swiftly ; 

Why the rabbit was so timid ; 

Talked with them where’er he met them, 

Called them “Hiawatha’s Brothers.” 

Besides his lessons in Nature lore, and the stunts 
of endurance, bravery, and skill set him by his 
father, Little Fox had occasional earnest talks with 
his mother, which more than all else perhaps aided 
him to grow up strong and sensible. 

“ My son,” she would say wisely, ‘‘ because your 
father is a great chief, you must not think you will 
be a great chief also, as a matter of course. Chiefs 
are made not born. The eyes of the other braves 
are upon you. When your father passes to the 


LITTLE FOX 


149 


Happy Hunting Grounds, a new chief will be 
chosen. You will be the first to be considered. 
If you have always been brave and true, if you 
have a knowledge of men and are shrewd, wary, 
strong, and cunning ; in short, if you are the best 
man in the tribe to be the new leader, you will be 
named chief, and not otherwise. 

“ See, therefore, my son, that you cultivate all 
these things. It is not enough to do as well as 
the other boys ; you must do better, if you would 
preserve the honor of our race. Be true, self-re- 
liant and faithful, untiring in the hunt and on the 
war path. Study the tactics and stratagem of 
your namesake, the fox. Never turn traitor. 
Rather be killed on the battle-field than desert your 
friends. So live always, my boy, that your rela- 
tives may be proud of your kinship, and that you 
may finally join the noble warriors of our people, 
who have gone before you to the Happy Hunting 
Grounds.” 


Beppo and Batiste 

Beppo and Batiste live in a land of blooming 
flowers, pure gold sunshine, and bright blue skies. 
It is the land of Italy. Their home is a snug two 
room cottage, high up the mountainside. It is 
almost covered with vines and crimson blossoms, 
and there are masses of roses, oleanders and sweet 
white lilies in the garden. 

The little boys have great fun. They have a 
pet goat named Belotti. They drive her all about 
— that is, when she will go. Sometimes she just 
sticks her head down between her knees and will 
not budge an inch 1 Then the boys scamper away 
to feed their pigeons, or to get an orange from the 
garden, and leave her to get back her good na- 
ture as she pleases. 

Last week when their father was away up the 
mountain he found a little chamois with a broken 
leg. He brought it home to the children. They 
got Father Felician to set the bone, and when it 
heals they are going to train the little creature to 
do all sorts of things. Then if stubborn old Belotti 

150 



© Underwood it 


BEPPO AND BATISTE 





1 



BEPPO AND BATISTE 


151 

does not take care, she will find herself turned out 
to grass with her kin I 

Many large chestnut trees grow in the lot be- 
yond the garden. In September, the prickly burrs 
open and the brown nuts drop out. The boys’ 
father hires children to help pick them up. Each 
picker has a canvas bag tied around his waist in 
which to put the chestnuts. They stay about a 
month and get two bags of chestnut flour for their 
work. Beppo and Batiste have boiled chestnuts 
for their dinner every day. Their mother makes 
cake and bread from the chestnut flour. They are 
all very fond of olive oil and macaroni. There 
are several olive, orange, lemon and fig trees in 
their garden, and they have some fine vineyards. 
Papa Philipe makes many casks of wine from the 
grapes. 

The vineyard is a beautiful place. The Italians 
do not stake their grape-vines up in long rows as 
we do. Instead the vines are allowed to train 
themselves over trees, and often run from one tree 
to another, making a vast vine-covered portico. 
The grapes grow in great tempting clusters, sweet 
and delicious. When ripe, they are picked and 
placed in a great vat. Then the boys roll their 
pants up high and jump in and tramp the juice 


152 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

out. There is a hole in the bottom of the vat to 
which is fastened a wooden faucet. The wine is 
drained off through this into a wooden vessel 
called a panier. The boys’ mother keeps watch 
of the paniers and whenever one is filled she car- 
ries it away to the cellar and empties it into a big 
tank, where they let it stand to ferment. 

Some of the games which the children play are 
very amusing. I am sure you would enjoy one 
which they have in the middle of Lent. They 
call it the “ Thursday Fat,” or “ Burning the Old 
Woman,” and the whole neighborhood takes 
part. At each home they make up a “ dummy 
woman,” sometimes an old man, too, dressing 
them up in the most ridiculous fashion, and hid- 
ing firecrackers and all sorts of fireworks in their 
clothes. They are on exhibition all day, and the 
children have a merry time going from house to 
house to see the dummies and to give sugges- 
tions regarding their make-up. Early in the 
evening they gather at a certain home and make 
the rounds of the neighborhood, watching the 
dummies burn. Somebody sets fire to the old 
girl’s skirt ; first is a little flame, then a firecracker 
explodes, now her hand that holds a paper hand- 
kerchief goes off with a bang, pretty soon one of 


BEPPO AND BATISTE 


153 


her legs begins to tremble, and as they watch, it 
flies ofl with a kick, and now from her other hand 
a grand succession of fireworks shoots up from 
her parasol, and she drops, to expire in smoul- 
ders, while the children rush on to the next old 
woman. 

Beppo and Batiste do not live very far from the 
beautiful city of Florence, which is famed for its 
great art galleries. The way thither is like fairy- 
land. Beautiful lilies, oleanders, and magnolias 
bloom by the roadside and all the air is heavy 
with their perfume. Silvery poplars, or “ white 
trees,” as they are called in Italy, and tall cypress 
trees cast their long shadows across the roadway, 
and every now and then through their rich foliage 
we catch the gleam of the beautiful river Arno. 
On the distant hill, we see the gleaming white 
walls of a monastery, and at a turn in the road 
we come upon an old gloomy tower, half hidden 
by vines and cypress trees. 


Noto San of Japan 

Little Noto San is a Japanese girl. Her 
home is only one room, but it is beautifully neat 
and clean. If you are going to step inside, you 
must take oft your shoes. The Japanese always 
leave their sandals at the door and slip on a pair 
of white stockings, which look for all the world 
like mittens, as there is a little pocket for the 
great toe. 

Noto San never has to dust her furniture, for 
there is no furniture to dust. The family all sit 
upon the floor. At meal time, each one has a 
tiny table, about six inches high, placed before 
them. There are no knives, forks, or spoons, 
only a pair of chopsticks. The food is served in 
little bowls. For breakfast, Noto San had rice, 
minced fish, and tea. Her mother tells us that 
she has had rice and tea every meal since she 
was a tiny baby, and she will probably keep on 
having them each meal as long as she lives. 
How some little people I know would turn up 
their noses if they had rice and tea each meal for- 
ever and ever ! Japanese people do not have 
154 


155 


NOTO SAN OF JAPAN 

stoves. They have small metal-lined fireboxes, 
which are highly decorated on the outside. They 
burn charcoal. 

When bedtime comes Noto San’s mother opens 
a big cupboard and takes out a pile of soft quilts 
and some little blocks of wood. With the aid of 
some paper screens, she quickly partitions off 
little bedrooms for the family. In each is placed 
a pile of quilts and one of the wooden blocks. 
The block is for a pillow I You would not like it, 
I am sure. But you would if you were a Japanese 
lady. They have long black hair and they dress 
it wondrously. Sometimes it takes hours and 
hours. By resting their necks over these wooden 
pillows, they are able to make one hair dressing 
last for several days. 

Noto San’s dress is a long, beautifully embroid- 
ered kimono. The sleeves are big and wide. 
They are just the finest place imaginable in which 
to tuck playthings ! 

If you were to ask Noto San what day of all 
the year she loved best, she would answer the 
third day of the third month. This is the day of 
the festival of the dolls. And such a happy time 
as it is I There are dolls, dolls, everywhere. The 
shop windows are perfectly gorgeous with the 


156 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

most wonderfully dressed dolls ; dolls that walk, 
dolls that talk, dolls that cry. Noto San’s heart 
is made glad by one of the loveliest of these. 
She already has more than a hundred dolls. 
Some of these belonged to her mother, some to 
her grandmother, and some to her great-grand- 
mother. And there is a whole trunkful of per- 
fectly lovely clothes ! So you may well guess 
what a happy time she has, and then, too, her 
little friends come to see her dolls and she goes 
to see theirs, and they have all sorts of goodies to 
eat with their tea. Afterwards there is a jolly 
romp on the common. 

Noto San’s brother likes best the fifth day of 
the fifth month. This is called the festival of 
banners. On that day over each home that 
has the honor of having a son is raised a tall 
bamboo pole, from the top of which swings a 
great gayly-colored fish. The boys march 
through the streets bearing banners, and they 
have all sorts of games which teach them bravery, 
courage, and love of country. 

Another day which the children love is that of 
the cherry festival. Then the shops are closed, 
school is let out, and every one goes into the 
groves and enjoys the blossoms for a whole day. 



© Kverylaiul Ala^aziiio 


BOYS’ KITE FESTIVAL 





157 


NOTO SAN OF JAPAN 

In November there is another flower day. It is 
the festival of the chrysanthemums — the national 
flower of Japan. Sometimes there are more than 
two hundred varieties of these gorgeous blossoms 
on show. 

On these days, and every day, for that matter, 
are all sorts of peddlers with goodies for sale. 
There are candied beans, sugared peas, starch 
patties, sweet rice cakes covered with vinegar, 
fish, cooling drinks, etc. Here is an old woman 
with griddle cakes. For a few “ sens ” a little girl 
can have the machine all to herself and bake a 
batch of cakes. 

Japan is the most delightful country in all the 
world for children. There are people who make 
a living by just going about entertaining the little 
folks. Here is an old man with a hurdy gurdy, 
yonder is a queer little hunchback with some cute 
trained monkeys, dressed in gay kimonos, and 
here is a woman who goes about telling fairy 
stories. Let us stop with Noto San and listen to 
one of the tales she tells. 

A Legend of the Chrysanthemum 

There was once a poor Japanese laborer who 
had much ado to wrest a living from the soil. At 


158 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

last he fell ill and died, leaving his wife and three 
little daughters to struggle on alone. 

It was hard work. Presently a day came when 
there was nothing in the house to eat but a few 
dry rice cakes. The children went to bed hungry 
that night. They were very brave and the mother 
heard no complaint. But when the moon looked 
into their lowly hut, her glorious light fell upon a 
row of tear-stained faces. 

The mother stooped over with a sob in her 
throat and tucked the old ragged quilt closer 
about them. “ Poor babies,’^ she whispered ten- 
derly, “ I will go and pray to Benten.^ Perhaps 
she will show me how to find food and clothes. 
For alas ! the chilly rainy season is upon us, and 
the wind blows to-night with almost the violence 
of a hurricane. Ugh I how it sweeps in through 
every crack and crevice I ” 

She got an old cloak of her husband’s and 
spread over the sleeping little ones, then set 
the ragged screen at a better angle to protect 
them. Their bed was some heavy strips of 
paper, for they had but the one quilt. And they 
were huddled close together for warmth. By and 


' The nurse of Japan, and the model to all good mothers because she 
once protected the children from the dragons. 


159 


NOTO SAN OF JAPAN 

by when the mother was ready she would lie 
down close beside them. But now she must go 
to the shrine of Benten. 

She caught up an old scarf to wind about her 
head and shoulders. But her hand was stayed by 
the sobbing sound of a child’s voice, which seemed 
to come from just without the door. 

“ Oh, I am so cold,” it cried. “ Pray let me in I ” 

Jingu hurriedly moved back the screen, and 
there stood a tiny lad, all ragged and shivering, 
and sobbing most pitifully. The good mother 
caught him up in her arms and carried him in. 
She chafed his cold hands and feet and fed him 
with the last of the rice cakes, dipped in hot 
water. Then she wrapped him in an old coat 
and settled him snugly beside her own little ones. 
By this time the rain had begun to fall in torrents. 
The mother was very tired. She had put in a 
long hard day in the field. She sat down on the 
floor, thinking perhaps the weather would soon 
clear, and immediately fell asleep, with her head 
resting against the side of the screen. 

Presently she awoke to find the room warm as 
summer and filled with a delicious smell of food. 

She sat up and gazed about with wide open 
eyes. Then she slowly pinched herself to see if 


i6o BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


she were awake. Surely some good fairies had 
been at work while she slept ! Near by were four 
little tables filled with steaming, savory food. 
There was a nice bowl of delicious clam broth, a 
dish of rice, some minced fish, and a cup of tea 
on each one. 

The mother cried out in delight, and ran joy- 
fully to wake the children. “ Fatima — Osonto — 
Koku — wake up ! wake up I ” she called. “ The 
most delightful thing has happened ! ” 

Then she put out her hand to arouse the 
strange child. He was gone ! Perhaps he had 
wakened and wandered out into the storm. She 
opened the door to call him back. Behold I there 
where he had stood in the cold biting wind was 
a lovely plant filled with pure white blossoms. 
“Take and cherish," said a voice from the clouds. 
“ It will bring you both food and clothes." 

Wonderingly, and with trembling the mother 
obeyed. She knew that the little lad whom she 
had fed with her last crust, and tucked in with her 
own babies, must have come from heaven. None 
but a god could waken the flowers in winter. 
Besides, these were such wondrously beautiful 
blossoms. Nothing like them had ever before 
been seen, she felt certain. 


NOTO SAN OF JAPAN i6i 

The emperor was glad to pay a magnificent 
sum for the little plants which soon sprang up 
from the roots of the main stalk, and never again 
did the good mother and her little ones want for 
the comforts of life. Gardeners cultivated the 
heaven-sent plants most carefully, and presently 
they were to be had by the thousands, not only in 
white bloom, but in red, yellow, purple, pink, and 
a variety of dainty combinations. Ages afterward 
the precious blossoms were christened Chrysan- 
themums, or “ Christ Flowers.” 


Little Mexican Twins 

Tolsa and Jacinto Costrello are little Mexican 
twins. They live on an hacienda {a-syen-da), 
which is the Mexican name for a great farm. 
Their father is a peon. His father and his grand- 
father before him were peons and worked on the 
hacienda for the Don Juans, the noble Mexican 
owners. The great bell in the tower measures the 
poor father’s day. It tells him when to get up, 
when to go to work in the field, when to eat his 
dinner of corn cakes and tomato sauce, and when 
to go back to his hut at night. 

The hut is only one room, and alas I it is any- 
thing but clean. It is the sleeping place of nearly 
twenty people and a great flock of hens. It is 
not a home, and Tolsa and Jacinto spend as little 
time there as possible. All day long they play in 
the gardens and fields and forest among the great 
cocoanut palms and mahogany trees, the bright 
flowers, and the laughing sunshine. Tolsa loves 
to make daisy chains and to gather great armfuls 

of the beautiful dahlias and geraniums which 
162 


LITTLE MEXICAN TWINS 163 

grow wild everywhere. Jacinto is happiest when 
astride a burrows back. He likes to ride over the 
flower-strewn earth and to fancy that he is one of 
the soldiers of the Mexican army. For Jacinto 
has made up his mind never to be a peon. He 
will go to the little schoolhouse on the hacienda 
and learn to read, and then some day he will go 
out into the world and be a great man I So he 
plans and fancies and builds a great many air 
castles. 

His grandmother sits all day with her pipe and 
her drawn work, beneath the shade of the mag- 
nolia, and tells him many things which feed his 
fancy. She knows wonderful tales about the 
noble Indian race, the Aztecs, which peopled 
Mexico before the Spaniards conquered the 
country. Her great grandfather was a mighty 
Aztec prince. He lived in a stone pueblo, and 
had many golden treasures. In her eye flashes a 
spark of his proud spirit. She would be glad to 
have Jacinto break away from the peons, and take 
his place among the Mexican free men. She tells 
him of the great Benito Juarez, he who was once 
president of Mexico. 

“ He was a poor Indian boy like yourself, 
Jacinto,’* she says. “ He wore ragged clothes 


i 64 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 

and had not a sign of a sombrero (som-bra-ro). 
But he studied and became a leader of the people, 
a man whom every Mexican loves and worships.’* 

Jacinto hears her with a thoughtful face, and 
his dusky little hand steals up to give his own 
old ragged sombrero a loving pat. A sombrero, 
you know, is a great wide-brimmed hat. It is a 
sign of rank among the Mexican lads, for many 
are too poor to own one. 

Soon Jacinto races off to find Tolsa. She and 
her mother have just come from washing clothes 
in the river, and now they are getting ready to 
make pulque {pool-ka). This is a kind of beer 
which is made from the sap of the maguey 
{mag-wa) or century plant. The natives are very 
fond of it, and the plant is grown freely. It has 
long pointed leaves and a stalk that sometimes 
grows to a height of thirty or forty feet. It bears 
white flowers at the top, but the plant has to be 
quite old before it blooms. That is why it is 
called a century plant. Among the leaves in the 
center of the plant is a large cone. The Mexi- 
cans hollow this out in the form of a bowl. When 
the bowl is filled the sap is dipped out and set 
away to sour. A single plant sometimes yields two 
or three gallons of sap per day, for several months. 



JACINTO AND HIS BURRO 





LITTLE MEXICAN TWINS 165 

There is another plant which looks something 
like the century plant that is of great use to the 
Mexicans. It is called sisal hemp, named from a 
port in Yucatan. It yields a fiber from which 
bagging, hammocks, and ropes are made. Many 
of our hammocks are made from this hemp. 

Not far from where Jacinto and Tolsa live is 
the city of Puebla. The Mexicans call it “ The 
City of Angels,” because legend says that the 
angels helped build it. The children can see the 
top of the tallest church spires, and they wonder 
and wonder what the city is like, for they have 
never been farther than the little hacienda village. 
The old grandmother has a piece of onyx which 
came from the great quarries near the city. Do 
you know what onyx is like ? It is a beautiful 
stone which is used a great deal for the inside 
decoration of buildings. Most of the beautiful 
Mexican blankets which you see in the shops 
come from Puebla. 


ole Torkelson 


Ole Torkelson lives in Norway. His father 
is a hunter and fisherman and he keeps many 
cattle, sheep and goats which Ole and his big 
sisters look after. Just as we come to their place, 
they are about to start for the saetar, and Ole is 
wild with joy. 

The saetar is the Torkelsons’ mountain home. 
Here Ole and his sisters Caroline and Mathilde 
will stay all summer, for here there is plenty of 
feed for the stock. 

They have had a busy time packing up, but 
now the wooden milk pails, the cheese press, 
the big iron kettle, the few kitchen things which 
they will need, the blankets, the food, etc., are all 
strapped on the backs of the horses. Ole is 
mounted on a dashing little black pony, and he 
carries an odd-looking horn of birch bark in one 
hand. He calls it a loor. If the cattle stray 
away, he will blow a great blast on the loor 
and call them back. Many of the cows have 
bells tied to their necks, and the ears of the sheep 

i66 


OLE TORKELSON 167 

and goats are marked so that they will know 
them if they wander away. 

The mountain path is very steep, and Ole and 
his sisters will not reach the saetar until nightfall. 
Then they will be too tired for anything but to 
get the stock into the pens, and supper ready, 
for the sisters will walk all the weary way. But 
early the next morning Ole will be up and about 
on his tireless little pony. Soon the animals will 
be turned out to grass and Ole will watch them. 
His sisters milk the cows and make butter and 
cheese. They also have a little garden behind 
their log cabin. In the afternoons they some- 
times help Ole with the herding and knit and 
spin while they watch. 

In July Mr. Torkelson and his little daughter 
Katharine will go up to the saetar and stay for a 
few days. Then Ole and Katharine will see the 
midnight sun. Do you know what that is ? For 
several nights in the summer the sun does not set, 
but shines all night long. It sinks down low in 
the west, but it does not go out of sight, and at 
midnight it begins to rise again. It is a wonder- 
ful and beautiful sight. 

In winter there are days and days when the sun 
does not shine at all where Ole lives, and it is 


i68 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


bitter cold. But it is not dark, for the moon and 
stars give their light and the beautiful aurora 
borealis shines far up in the sky. Do you know 
about the aurora borealis ? Some people call it 
the northern lights. It is very beautiful and has 
many forms. One of the handsomest is a belt, or 
scarf, of silver clouds stretched along the northern 
horizon. From the upper edge of this cloud pen- 
cils and streamers of light shoot up into the sky, 
making it look like a great lighted dome, sup- 
ported by ever-changing pillars of fire. 

Ole and Katharine dread to see winter come, 
for then they must stay in the house many days 
at a time. For weeks the snow falls in thick and 
heavy flakes, until it seems that there is nothing 
in all the land but snow. The ground under their 
feet is snow ; the sky above their heads is snow ; 
everything is snow ! The traveler who attempts 
to go about in the blinding whirl is sure to be 
lost. 

It gets dark early and sometimes when grand- 
mother is too tired to tell them stories, the chil- 
dren find the evenings very long indeed. They 
wonder how Mathilde and Caroline can sit so pa- 
tiently spinning and weaving cloth to be made 
into clothes for the family. But by and by the 


OLE TORKELSON 


169 


storm passes, the heavens clear, and the sun 
shines brightly upon the dazzling whiteness. 
Then Ole and Katharine have great fun sliding 
over the deep snow on snow-shoes. 

They have to be careful not to get too far from 
home, for fear of the wolves which often grow 
very fierce and hungry when the winters are long 
and cold. Sometimes Mr. Torkelson joins his 
neighbors in a great wolf hunt. They go with 
loors and ponies, dogs and guns, and make a day 
of it. Frequently the wolves show fight at first, 
but they are soon overpowered. Always the 
hunter seeks first to kill the “ chief wolf,” or ring- 
leader of the pack, and sometimes he leads them 
a wild chase. 

Ole and his sister go to a log schoolhouse in 
the edge of a great forest of spruce and pine. 
The seats are made to hold four pupils. Do you 
suppose the master can keep the little boys and 
girls from whispering when they sit so close to- 
gether? He is a dear old man. His wife and 
granddaughter, Anna, live in the rooms back of 
the schoolroom. 

Early in the spring Ole has great sport hunting 
with his father. They shoot heath cocks, wild 
ducks, and water-fowl. They build themselves 


170 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


huts of spruce boughs and sometimes stay for 
several days. Getting the heath cock is the most 
fun. These birds have an odd fashion of meeting 
on the moors and fighting a pitched battle for life 
or death, to see who shall be the leader of the 
flock. They use the same battle-ground from 
year to year, and Ole and his father always build 
their huts of boughs close beside it. From this 
point they shoot when the fight has grown the 
fiercest. Sometimes there are a score or more of 
cocks in a struggle, and they bag a nice bunch 
before all is done. 


Darius, a Playmate of Persia 

Darius Moustefa is a little Persian lad who 
lives far away in Teheran, the capital city of 
Persia. He is a very fair, dark-haired, dark-eyed 
little chap, and proud indeed that he is attending 
school “ under the banner of the Lord," as his 
people call the church mission schools. Here he 
is learning many valuable things, not the least of 
them being how to become a useful citizen. His 
father can see little sense in the strange-looking 
figures and scrawls Darius sometimes brings 
home on paper. “ In my day," says he, “ boys 
learned ‘ to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak 
the truth. ^ Even the shah himself could not read 
or write. He kept scribes for such things." 

But alas ! one part of his youthful lessons was 
never learned by Moustefa I He is a little man, 
with a great bushy black beard, and skilled in all 
manner of trickery and deceit. He has no special 
business, but quite often he goes up to the mys- 
tical city of Nedjef, in Arabia, as a paid mourner 
with one of the funeral caravans. Nedjef is the 
171 


172 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

mecca of the Persians. Here every good man 
goes to pray at least once during his life, and 
here he hopes to be buried when he dies. The 
hot sandy plains without the city has been the 
sepulchre of more human bodies than any other 
spot on earth. Only last month Moustefa re- 
turned from the burial of a great Persian noble- 
man. He was one of three hundred paid mourn- 
ers, who wept and wailed during the better part 
of the six weeks’ journey to the city. 

Darius has a dear little sister called Sherin, 
which is the Persian word for sweet. She has 
never been to school. But Ali, her older brother, 
who is a camel driver, has promised that she cer- 
tainly shall as soon as he can earn enough money 
to buy the thread which his mother and grand- 
mother need for weaving rugs and tapestries. 
They keep the wolf from the door by the sale of 
these. So Sherin patiently does her daily task of 
winding silk fiber on to the reels for making 
thread. Sometimes Darius helps her, and they 
have good times planning all sorts of things. 

Once upon a time Sherin went with Ali on one 
of his caravan trips, and she never tires of tell- 
ing the interesting things she saw. A number of 
beautiful ladies and their staff of servants made 


DARIUS, A PLAYMATE OF PERSIA 173 

up the company. They took a fancy to Sherin, 
and she rode with one or another of the ladies all 
the way in the little covered boxes, like bird-cages, 
slung one on each side of the great long-legged 
“ships of the desert.” Best of all, Sherin liked 
the time they spent in camp. Such good things 
as they had to eat ! There was fruit such as 
Sherin had never even seen before, and the most 
delicious sweets and vegetables! She did not 
even know the names of many of them. It was 
all so different from the tiresome meals of bread 
slabs, cheese and tea, which they had at home. 
For seldom indeed could the Moustefas afford the 
other two items of peasant diet — rice .and meat. 
After the supper was cleared away, paid musi- 
cians entertained them with wonderful music from 
harps and guitars, or professional story-tellers re- 
lated the most thrilling tales. Sherin learned all 
about the genii, the spirits of good and evil. 
“ Always, Darius,” says she, “ there are two of 
these genii with you wherever you go. One lays 
all the pitfalls he can to tempt you into sin ; the 
other wrestles to overthrow them and help you to 
be good.” 

Sherin learned, too, about the peris, who were 
female spirits shut out from heaven. Of the 


174 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 

demon Siltim who was supposed to haunt groves 
and solitary places, and of the devas, or demons 
of the air, who loved to capture the peris, and 
shut them up in iron cages, which they hung from 
the tallest trees. She knew wonderful stories of 
the mythical King Splendid of Persepolis, the 
Kaisar Jamschid, who lived in a great castle 
built by the genii. Underneath this castle were 
secret vaults containing vast treasures which many 
sought to discover and thereby met with all sorts 
of adventure. Kaisar Jamschid it was who said : 
“The world’s not worth a barley corn.” What 
did he mean ? 

Other legends which Sherin never tired of had 
to do with A1 Rakim, a dog in the Mohammedan 
paradise, having charge of correspondence and 
messages, and the wonderful celestial steed A1 
Borak, on which it is said Mohammed rode in a 
single night from Mecca to Jerusalem, and on to 
the seventh heaven. This marvelous steed had a 
human face, the wings of an eagle, and a color as 
white as milk. 

There were many things which interested Sherin 
in the country through which they passed: the 
vast silent desert, with its wonderful little oases, 
so green and refreshing after the heat and glitter 


DARIUS, A PLAYMATE OF PERSIA 175 

of the sands ; and the pleasant river valley which 
they presently followed some distance, where “ all 
the company was peacocks and turtle doves.” 
Once she caught sight of a herd of antelopes, and 
again she shivered at the wails of a hyena away 
in the forest. ‘*What would it mean to be lost 
in this solitary region?” she asked herself. And 
then, if no other time on the wonderful journey, 
she thought of home and her silk reel with pleas- 
ure. It was good to feel that she had a safe place 
all her own, however humble and tiring it was at 
times. 

Sherin had brought home a great armful of 
blue water lilies, and Ali had the most wonderful 
present for Darius. It was a baby gazelle. One 
of his comrades had found it bleating pitifully in 
the rushes by the waterside. They thought its 
mother had been killed. Perhaps a lion had 
caught her I Never was there a dearer little play- 
mate than Alex soon became. He follows Darius 
all about, and loves to nose in his pockets for bits 
of bread and cheese. Often he goes to market 
with his master. For Darius has all the buying 
to do. 

In the homes of the rich Persians, the cook does 
the buying. The Moustefas cannot afford a cook, 


176 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

neither of the women has time to go to market, 
and so the lot fell to Darius. He does not mind, 
for there are many men cooks in Persia, and he 
often meets lads not much older than himself. 
The grocery store is a mere stall, after the fashion 
of most of the shops in the East. Its wares are 
set forth most unhygienically in a bewildering 
array of wooden trays. But their number does 
not much concern Darius. He has very little 
money to spend, and his wants are soon satisfied. 

There is a little beggar on the corner that re- 
minds Darius of Sherin. He often gives her 
small coins. She is so bright and cheerful, in 
spite of her bare feet and the ragged jute sacks 
which make up the most of her clothes. Always 
her head and ears are carefully wrapped in a 
square of old faded silk, which is pinned snugly 
under her chin and drapes down about her shoul- 
ders, shawl fashion. One seldom sees a Persian 
girl or woman without this draped head-covering, 
though some of the girls at Darius* school have 
adopted white sunbonnets. They are so much 
neater and cooler. 

Darius likes to design rug patterns for his 
mother and grandmother, and often, too, he helps 
in the weaving. Such wonderful colors as they 



PERSIAN BLACKSMITH SHOP 






» 1 ^ 

I 



DARIUS, A PLAYMATE OF PERSIA 177 

use I And they keep the secret of their dye-stuffs 
very carefully. Their loom is simply two poles, 
one at the top, the other at the bottom, to hold the 
threads taut. It is hung on the side of the house, 
and until the work has progressed so that the 
women can reach it from the ground, they squat 
on a scaffold made by stretching a board across 
from a ladder at each side. This can be lowered 
rung by rung as desired. The weaving is a care- 
ful, painstaking operation, accomplished entirely 
by hand. The Moustefa women are very skillful 
and do not wish for any assistance outside of 
their own family. But most of their neighbors 
like to join forces, and it is common to see as 
many as six or eight men and women working on 
one rug. 

Rugs, tapestries, and grass mats are almost the 
only manufactures of Persia. Wheat, cotton, rice, 
barley and opium are cultivated. But the Per- 
sians are too shiftless to be good farmers. Then, 
too, so much of their country is desert land. 
There are practically no railroad or carriage 
roads. Trade is carried on by caravan. In times 
past, Darius and Ali have talked and planned 
about one day being traders and managing a 
caravan route of their own. But lately Darius 


178 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

has been reading some scout books which were 
loaned him at the mission, and now he thinks it 
would be fine to be a trapper in the big forests I 
No doubt he will outgrow this desire. But it is not 
probable that the caravan dream will ever be real- 
ized. For Western progress is creeping into the 
far-away realm of the East. Telegraphs and post- 
offices have been established and the railroad will 
come next. Then Ali may be a brakeman instead 
of a camel driver I And who knows what Darius 
may become ? The schoolboys of Persia are its 
hope for the future ; through them must come 
the country’s advancement. Persia is about four 
times as large as the state of California. It is 
ruled by a king, or shah as he is called. There 
is no chance of Darius ever being the shah, but 
he might become one of the shah’s chief advisers ; 
or again, if very wonderful progress were made, 
he might become president of Persia I There is 
really no telling. 

Darius loves all sorts of outdoor sports. He 
and his chums have great times running races, 
slinging stones, flying kites, and practicing with 
the bow and arrow. There is a lake not far away, 
and in summer it is great fun to camp upon its 
bank. Such times as they have in the water and 


DARIUS, A PLAYMATE OF PERSIA 179 


upon it ! Like the Persian boys of old, they make 
long marches and expose themselves to all sorts 
of weather, and as a further test of endurance they 
sometimes try having but one meal in two days I 
But not often, for this latter feat is too disastrous 
in its results. Boys of Persia, like the boys of all 
other realms, are too apt to be “hollow clear 
down.” They had rather have an extra meal 
than to miss one I The Moustefas do not keep a 
horse, but Darius can ride as though he were 
born in the saddle. He is quite a hunter, too. 
Last summer he got $5 for a bearskin rug which 
he manufactured from the coat of a misguided 
bruin that thought to make a meal at their forest 
camp. 

Sometimes Darius gets little odd jobs to do. 
The other day he helped a family move up to 
their summer home in the hills beyond Teheran. 
It is so very warm in the city in summer that no 
one stays in it who can possibly get away. Mov- 
ing in Persia is exciting business ! Chairs, tables, 
bedding and such necessities are loaded on the 
backs of donkeys. Dishes and other breakables 
are carried on wooden trays which the men bal- 
ance on their heads. Fancy your mother having 
her favorite tea-set transported in that way! Ten 


i8o BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


donkeys and four tray carriers made up the pro- 
cession. The ladies of the family rode in swing- 
ing palanquins, carried between donkeys walking 
tandem. The mountain cottage is a long, low 
building of one story, with a single upper room 
built on the flat mud roof. This upper room 
has no windows. But there are eleven doors 
with glass panes. It is as good as a sleeping 
porch. The kitchen is such a long ways from 
the dining-room that Darius tells his boy friend, 
Ardishir the cook, that he will have to run if he 
gets the food served before it gets cold. Ardishir 
winks drolly and says he will just imagine the 
Kurds are after him. The Kurds are a clan of 
wild robbers from the fastness of the mountains, 
who often sweep down striking terror to all hearts 
and leaving death and destruction in their path. 
Not infrequently boys and girls are carried away 
to their camps and made to serve as slaves. 


Our Little Brown Cousins 

If you please, we will journey away over the 
sunny Pacific to the “ Venice of the Far East.” 
This is the city of Manila, in the islands of the 
Philippines. At the close of the Spanish-Ameri- 
can war, these islands were given to Uncle Sam 
upon the payment of twenty million dollars to 
Spain. So you see the children here are our kin 
in very truth. They are under the same govern- 
ment and they are attending schools much like 
our own. 

We will make the trip on the wings of the mind 
and get there in one moment, thus doing away 
with worry and seasickness. It is a delightful 
way to travel ! And our eyes are big with won- 
der as we enter the great Bay of Manila. Ordi- 
narily it takes several hours to cross it and come 
to anchor in the harbor near the mouth of the 
Pasig River. But we are over it in a twinkling 
and sailing up the river in one of the government 
steam launches into the very heart of the city. 

Canals branch out from the river, and it is 

i8i 


i 82 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 


possible to go in boats to all parts of this “New 
Venice.” We soon come to the Bridge of Spain, 
which divides Old and New Manila. Old Manila 
is enclosed by a big wall and surrounded by 
water, the sea being on one side, the river on 
another, and the remaining sides flanked by 
moats. The moats and wall were built to protect 
the city from sea pirates, and fifty years ago it 
was still the custom to close the drawbridge at 
night, thus shutting up the walled town like an 
old fortress of the Middle Ages. Most of the 
officials have their offices in Old Manila ; here 
also are a large number of schools, colleges, 
churches and monasteries. New Manila is the 
business part of the city and also the residence 
section. 

There is a group of little boys playing marbles, 
not far from the large monument which the Span- 
iards built in honor of Magellan, who discovered 
the islands, and we hurriedly signal to be landed 
there. Americans are common enough, and our 
arrival is not even noted by the little urchins who 
are deep in what promises to be a lively squabble. 
What a noise they make ! Chattering volubly at 
the top of their voices, all talking at once, and 
gesticulating with a wildness that is most amusing. 


« 4 



CARABOA AND NATIVE CART 





<1 





OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 183 

And what comical little figures they are I They 
all wear their shirts outside of their trousers 
because it is cooler that way. Some of the 
shirts are so thin that we can see the brown 
skin beneath. 

Here come some Filipino women ! They wear 
long flowing skirts, and low-necked, elbow- 
sleeved waists. Around their waists is wound a 
strip of cloth, tucked up after the fashion of an 
overskirt, and they have broad starched collars 
over their shoulders and crossed in front. The 
Filipinos are by no means bad looking. They 
are straight and well formed, with black eyes, 
coarse black hair, and white even teeth. They 
are fond of daily dips in the canal and are clean 
and neat at all times. 

What a strange looking animal that man is 
riding ! It is the carabao, or “ water buffalo,’’ the 
beast of all burden in the Philippines. It is said 
to be related to the cow, but we are sure our 
thoroughbred bossies would turn up their cool 
noses if they were told of the relationship. It has 
been wallowing in the mud and water just like 
a pig, and its ugly dark skin and thin bristling 
black hair is covered with mud. Our guide says 
that mud baths are necessary to the carabao as in 


i 84 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 

this way they keep off mosquitoes, flies and other 
insects. Later, as we travel about the country, 
we seldom see a carabao without a bird on his 
back. The buffalo is well pleased to haVe the 
bird there as it feeds on the insects which worry 
him. Besides doing all sorts of farm and dray 
work, the carabao furnishes milk and meat to the 
poorer classes. 

Here comes a bright looking little brown boy 
driving a carromatas, as the Filipinos call their 
small two-wheeled pony cabs. He is dressed in 
white. It is the livery of the cabmen. See how 
politely he bows to us I All the Filipinos think 
that Americans have money, and he hopes to get 
some of ours. We do not like to cast a reflection 
on our race, and so bargain with him to take us 
to a hotel. But before we have gone half a block, 
we regret our loyalty. For like all the other 
drivers about him, the lad has absolutely no 
mercy on his pony, and we dash through the 
narrow crowded streets in a wild reckless fashion 
that threatens to bring us to disaster. 

Fortunately, however, nothing happens, and we 
presently find ourselves climbing the steps of a 
large three-story building, with balconies running 
entirely around it on the second and third floors. 


OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 185 

The rooms are large and airy, and open on the 
balcony which is walled with thin oyster shells. 
They let in the light but shut out the heat. The 
house is handsomely furnished with ebony and 
mahogany that would cost a fortune in our coun- 
try. The Filipinos are very fond of music, and 
we find both piano and organ in the parlor. The 
first floor is occupied by the servants and ponies. 
It is unhealthy to live near the ground in this land, 
and we find most of the dwellings built up on tall 
bamboo poles. The carabaos, chickens and hogs 
are kept under them. 

For dinner we have fish and game and all kinds 
of vegetables, some of which are strange to us. 
One of the most surprising of these is a dish of 
bamboo shoots. We knew that the Filipino used 
the bamboo for making almost everything, but 
we never thought of them eating it I There is a 
delicious assortment of fruit, and we make most of 
our meal from it — bananas with red, white and 
yellow skins, pineapples, lemons, oranges, and 
breadfruit. Later on, in the market, we see a 
tree fruit called the pawpaw which looks like a 
muskmelon. 

The Filipino market is most fascinating and we 
spend some time there. The stores are mere huts 


i86 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


of bamboo with palm leaf roofs. The storekeepers 
are men, women and boys. They are squatted on 
the ground chattering like monkeys. The Fili- 
pinos, like the Japanese, are a nation of squatters. 
They sit down on their heels to do everything. 
But one kind of goods is sold in a hut. Look at 
these shoes ! They are nothing but wooden soles 
with a piece of leather over the instep. The Fili- 
pino seldom wears stockings. It is too warm. 

In this stall is nothing but tobacco. Every one 
smokes in the Philippines — women, children, and 
all. Here is a nut much resembling a green but- 
ternut. It is called the betel nut. The natives 
cut it up, mix in a little lime and tobacco, and then 
chew it. It is disgusting stuff. Look, yonder is 
a boy chewing some of it ! His teeth, tongue and 
lips look as though they dripped blood. 

Over here on our left are stoves and cooking 
vessels. Such stoves and such kettles ! They are 
made of red clay. The Filipino has a stove for each 
dish he cooks. The stove is a bowl with knobs 
around the top edge to serve as a rim to keep the 
kettle from touching the fire. Charcoal is the 
usual fuel. There are no chimneys, and often the 
kitchen walls are as black as the charcoal itself. 

Not far away is the fish market, where are all 


OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 187 

kinds of fish, fresh and dried, from tiny minnows to 
fish large enough to slice for steaks. Many fish are 
sold alive, being piled into light woven bamboo 
baskets which hold water. The customer feels the 
fish to make sure it is fresh, and then the peddler 
kills it by pounding it on the back with a stick. 

Chickens and pigeons are kept in loosely woven 
bamboo cages and baskets. Hogs, too, are kept 
alive until wanted, and there are pens of guinea 
pigs, which are sold to be eaten as we eat rabbits 
and squirrels. 

How noisy it is I One of our party — a man, of 
course, — says that it is because most of the buying 
and selling is done by the women I Certainly 
there are a great many of them. Even the porters 
are women. Those girls over there with wide 
umbrella hats have come in from the country with 
something to sell. All trading is by bargaining, 
and the people screech their offers and refusals at 
the top of their voices. There is a great deal of 
chaffing and wrangling. People are hurrying to 
and fro with great burdens on their backs or heads, 
and the way is blocked with drays and carts. 

There are many interesting sights in Manila. 
But the city covers about twenty square miles, 
and our time is limited as we wish to see some- 


i88 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


thing of the country round about, so we decide to 
content ourselves with a bird’s-eye view from the 
church tower of Saint Sebastian. A black-robed 
priest opens the door and we follow him up and 
up the hundreds of steps of the slim, spiral stair- 
case to the top of the tower. Here we hold our 
breath in admiration of the view below us. The 
city skirts the silvery Bay of Manila for miles and 
extends backward to lose itself in a green plain 
spotted with trees. In the distance are magnifi- 
cent mountains as blue as our own Blue Ridge 
mountains in midsummer. Waterways and wide 
streets cross one another at all angles, even in the 
fields and vegetable gardens without the city. 
There are boats and launches everywhere. Over 
there is Luneta, the park where fashionable Manila 
comes to drive and listen to the music from five 
o’clock until dusk every afternoon. 

As we watch, the sun sinks low, and the old 
priest directs our attention to the farmers returning 
from their labors. For there are no farmhouses 
in the Philippines. The people all dwell in the 
cities. On they come in groups of color like 
“bright-colored ribbons through the green fields.” 
The men and boys are clothed in white cotton. 
The women and girls wear black shawls and red 


OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 189 


skirts. Some of the boys are walking hand in 
hand, some of the girls have their arms linked 
around the waists of their friends, others are en- 
joying a merry game of tag and playing pranks 
as children will. 

The sun is scarcely an hour high when we set 
out by train next day to see the country along the 
railroad running north of Manila to the sea. On 
each side of the track are vast fields of rice, dotted 
here and there with groves of bananas, patches of 
Indian corn, tobacco, hemp, and the pale green 
of little sugar plantations. Here and there are 
clumps of tall, feathery bamboos, beautiful fern 
trees with their lace-like leaves, pine and cedar, 
teak, ebony, mahogany, the rubber tree, the 
camphor tree, the cocoanut palm, and the banyan 
tree with great roots hanging from its branches. 
There are beautiful flowers everywhere, running 
vines, ropes of rattan and great growths of wire- 
like grass. The trees are filled with birds of beau- 
tiful plumage, but we hear few song birds. There 
are parrots of every size and color, great white 
herons, strange whistling birds, wild turkeys, and 
many colored doves and pigeons three times as 
large as ours. Our guide, a little Filipino boy, 
says that there are wild hogs and deer in the forest. 


190 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

Rice is the chief food crop and we find it in 
every stage of cultivation. Here is a water- 
soaked field with little green sprouts just spring- 
ing up. There is a field just beginning to turn 
yellow. Now we come to a rich golden field 
where the harvesting is being done. Here are 
many women and girls cutting the rice stalk by 
stalk and gathering it into little sheaves. By and 
by the men will gather the little sheaves into 
shocks. Over yonder is a Filipino threshing 
machine at work. It is a blindfolded carabao 
with a boy on his back riding him back and forth 
over a pile of rice straw I Some of the Filipinos 
thresh with a sort of saw-toothed machine. After 
the grain is separated from the straw the hulls are 
pounded off in a great wooden trough. This is a 
daily stunt for the boy. He must hull enough 
rice for the family^s use. He winnows it by 
throwing it up in the air and letting the wind 
blow away the chaff. 

Many girls and women are at work on the 
sugar and tobacco plantations. Here are some 
girls planting sugar cane. They lay the bits of 
cane end to end in furrows and cover them with 
their bare feet. Over yonder another gay-skirted 
group is busily inspecting the rich, dark green 


OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 191 

tobacco leaves for worms. There are about 
10,000 tobacco plants to the acre, and the girls 
say that it is back-breaking work to keep a field 
free of weeds and insect pests. The plants are 
set out in October. In April the leaves are ready 
to be cut off, cured and sorted. 

We pass through a number of farming settle- 
ments, or towns, which have but one street, 
perhaps a mile or more in length. The huts are 
ranged along on either side, and there are groups 
of noisy children having gay times together. 
They wear nothing but cotton shirts which reach 
to their knees. The babies go naked. Batiste, 
our guide, says that there are about eighty tribes 
of wild men on the islands, all speaking a different 
language. Some of these have their homes built 
in trees, crawling into them at night on crotched 
sticks which they pull up after them. Cannibals 
and head-hunters have their stronghold in the 
mountains, and we are careful to keep our distance. 

Now and then we catch sight of a Negrito ” 
peeping at us from behind a tree. The Negritos 
are queer looking little people with spindling legs, 
sunken foreheads, and puffed-out stomachs. They 
go almost naked and decorate their bodies with 
beads, snake skins, etc. They offer sacrifices to 


192 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

woodland spirits, and wander about, sleeping in 
caves, and living upon roots, wild fruit, and such 
game as they can trap or shoot with bow and arrow. 

The Igorrotes (eg gor r5' tes) are a fine looking 
race, — tall, strong and well formed, with very 
brown skins and high cheek bones. They are 
great warriors, and have their own towns and 
villages. They have little farms in the foot-hills 
northwest of Luzon. They mine iron and copper 
and are skilled in making lances and swords. 
They scorn clothing — a breech cloth and some 
gay tattooing being all they require. 

In the southern part of the Philippines is an in- 
teresting tribe called the Bagobas. They wear 
clothes woven of grass, and ivory or shell ear- 
rings as big round as a cup. All are fond of 
jewelry. The women wear heavy brass rings on 
their ankles and a string of bells about the calf of 
the leg. They worship spirits which they believe 
to dwell in the trees and mountains. 

The Moros are among the most civilized as 
well as the oddest of the tribes we visit. They 
live in villages of gray thatched huts, about fif- 
teen or twenty feet square, built high up on bam- 
boo poles under the tallest of cocoanut trees. 
The floor is of bamboo poles covered with mats, 


OUR LITTLE BROWN COUSINS 193 

and there is no furniture. Indeed the house is of 
but little use save as a shelter at night and in time 
of storms. There are scores of half-naked little 
brown boys all about. They are armed, like their 
fathers, with a fierce looking kris or sword at their 
belts; some have spears and lances, and others 
carry guns. The men wear bright-colored tur- 
bans, loose jackets and skin-tight trousers striped 
with red, yellow and blue. Some wear straw hats 
over their turbans, ending at the crown in a cone 
of burnished tin. Women and girls wear long 
gayly-colored gowns. All chew the betel. The 
Moro women have their teeth colored jet black 
and filed down with a stone until they curve out 
in front. The Moro girl is sold or traded to her 
husband. A beauty can be bought for ten dol- 
lars, or for a carabao. The Moros are mostly 
fishers, but they do some crude farming, using 
only the simplest of tools. Here comes a girl 
bringing a drink to her father in the field. Her 
bucket is a bamboo stalk, covered at one end. If 
you were to try to drink from it, likely you would 
get a good drenching. The Moros are divided 
into tribes, each under its own chief or datto, who 
has absolute power over his subjects. 


Juan of Porto Rico 

Juan Moro is a little brown boy living on the 
far-away island of Porto Rico, about one thousand 
miles east of Havana in the Atlantic Ocean. It 
is a delightful land in which to dwell — ‘‘ the land 
of perpetual June.” Gardens and fields produce 
crops two or three times a year. Flowers bloom 
and there is fruit the year around. Ferns grow 
to the height of spreading trees, and there are 
many plants with colored leaves which are as 
brilliant as flowers. 

Juanas home is a crowded basement in Ponce 
(Pon' sa), the chief commercial city of Porto Rico. 
It has but one room. The windows are small 
openings on the sidewalk above. They let in 
little light and scarcely any fresh air. There is 
but one bed. Juan and his many brothers and 
sisters sleep on a pile of straw in one corner. In 
another the two game cocks, Darius and Chris- 
topher, roost. These birds are highly prized, and 
are given better care than the children. Every 
Sunday afternoon there is a grand cock-fight 
194 


195 


JUAN OF PORTO RICO 

in a building which stands next to the cathedral 
and town hall in importance. On occasion 
Darius has covered the family and himself with 
glory. 

There is no stove in Juanas home. Indeed you 
will scarcely find one on the island. As in Cuba, 
the cooking is done over small pots of charcoal. 
The people live mostly on fruits and vegetables 
which do not need cooking and cost very little. 
Two great juicy oranges can be bought for a 
penny. The same sum invested in bananas will 
buy five. Limes, cocoanuts, dates, figs, sweet 
apples, pears, and dozens of other fruits are just 
as cheap. Juan helps to make the living by ped- 
dling fruit juices, which are very delicious and 
refreshing. He carries his stock upon his head 
in a large basket or panier. He is saving his 
pennies in the hope of some day being able to 
buy a pony to bear the burden. 

Juan does not care much about school. He 
had rather go to a good cock-fight any day. 
And he is not alone in this opinion. Few of the 
Porto Ricans ever saw a book or heard of school 
until after the Spanish-American war, when the 
stars and stripes were hoisted above the island 
and Uncle Sam began to take an active interest 


196 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

in affairs. It will take time for them to become 
interested in education. 

Juan’s little brothers and sisters have no toys, 
books, or pictures, and scarcely any clothes, yet 
they seem happy and contented. They play in 
the street, and a little dirt more or less does not 
matter to them. They are fond of music, and 
Juan plans soon to go up to his uncle’s in the 
country and make a guida. This is a queer 
musical instrument fashioned from a curved-neck 
gourd. It does not sound very musical to our 
touch, but the Porto Ricans are natural musicians 
and can get music out of anything. 

Often Juan goes to amuse some little rich 
children, whose father is a great man on the 
island. They live in a grand house, built after 
the fashion of the houses in Cuba, with the family 
living-rooms on the second floor and the servants 
and stables below. The place is very comfort- 
ably furnished, and the children are quite as well 
dressed as the children in our own land, except- 
ing the baby who is allowed to go quite naked, 
because it is cooler that way. The boys attend 
the American school, and later will be sent to our 
country or to Europe to finish their education. 
The little girls have a governess, who teaches 


JUAN OF PORTO RICO 


197 


them many things not found in books. The 
Porto Ricans do not think it advisable for a 
woman to be “ book learned.” 

Juan’s chum, Colombo San Sebastol, is a lad of 
his own age who sells iced cherries, chocolate, 
and coffee. He used to live in the country, and 
he says that it is a far happier place than the city. 
There was a cool stream under the tree ferns and 
banana trees where he could paddle about, and it 
was great fun to fish and catch crabs for the 
market. Nor did he mind weeding the garden, 
digging potatoes, and gathering fruit, vegetables, 
and coffee. All the time, too, he had to keep a 
weather eye open for the wild hog, which is very 
fierce and does great damage among the sheep, 
pigs, and calves. He says that Porto Rican 
farmers think themselves rich if they own a horse, 
a cow, some game cocks, a gun, and an acre of 
land. The farmer’s home can be built in two 
days from the royal palm and the cocoanut tree. 
He makes what little furniture and table articles 
his family needs. He raises his own rice flour, 
corn meal, coffee, tobacco, sugar and vegetables. 
Fruit grows wild and may be had for the picking. 
Now and then he takes some produce to town. 
With the money he buys clothing, or more often 


198 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


has a hilarious time gambling at a rooster 
hght ! 

Colombo says he often saw armies of crabs 
marching across the country to the seashore to 
lay their eggs and cast their shells. Did you 
ever hear of such an army? There were little 
crabs and big crabs ; some as small as a quarter 
and others as large as a dinner plate. They 
traveled in rows, half a mile wide, and as fast as 
a horse could go, stopping for nothing, up hill 
and down dales, even over stone walls. Then 
there were scores of interesting pirate crabs. 
Do you know about them ? They have a fash- 
ion of coming out of their shells and running 
around in freedom. When they get ready to go in, 
they do not trouble to find their own empty house, 
but back into the first shell handy and ramble off 1 

Porto Rican stores look like small caves, when 
compared with the great mercantile establish- 
ments of our country. The business signs are 
Spanish, and disclose neither the nature of the 
business carried on within nor the name of the 
owner. For instance, here is a dry goods shop 
labeled “ La Rosa,’^ “ the rose ; ” a hardware store 
flourishes under a name which Juan translates as 
“ The White Heron ; ” and a shoe shop an- 


JUAN OF PORTO RICO 199 

nounces itself as The Golden Girl.” The mar- 
kets are carried on inside a noisy courtyard, much 
after the fashion of other markets we have visited. 
There are all sorts of vegetables and tropical 
fruits, as well as meats and fish of all kinds. The 
busiest stall of all perhaps is that where dried beef 
is sold. The natives like it stewed to eat with their 
rice. Salt cod is another article much in demand. 

The island of Porto Rico is about one-half the 
size of the state of New Jersey. It is very thickly 
settled, and since our government took it in hand 
conditions have been steadily improving. Courts 
and schools have been established, postal and 
telegraph systems put in operation, roads built, 
etc. It is only about three days by fast steamer 
from New York to San Juan, on the northern 
coast ; so that in the near future it may be that 
we shall have the pleasure of enjoying some of 
the delicious vegetables, pineapples, oranges, 
bananas and other luscious fruits which delight 
the palates of these cousins of ours. Indeed per- 
haps Juan and Colombo and their friends will 
grow rich and prosperous raising these things 
for northern markets. Imagine getting an apple 
or a melon from the fruit stand with the lettering 
Juan Moro or C. San Sebastol upon it I 


A Visit to the Zamarkroff Family 

Wouldn’t you like to visit a large country 
place in Russia ? Suppose we spread our fairy 
rug of fancy and sail away on it to the home 
of Ivan and Christine Zamarkroff. Their father 
owns an estate of 10,000 acres about a hundred 
miles from Moscow. 

We arrive just in time for supper, and are 
summoned at once to the dining-room. Such a 
supper 1 The table fairly groans with its load of 
good things. There is roast sucking pig and 
roast half-grown chickens, each person being 
served a lengthwise half of the bird ; thinly-cut 
slices of dried salmon ; fermented cabbage, which 
tastes much like the familiar sauerkraut ; potatoes 
cooked in their jackets ; a vegetable combination 
cooked in linseed oil — a dish which we find as 
uneatable as its name is unspeakable ; several 
kinds of fruit preserves and dried fruit; and a 
sort of iced soup, composed of bits of fish, slices 
of lettuce, spring onions, cucumbers, and a variety 
of herbs, combined with thick cream. How hun- 


200 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 


201 


gry we are I We feel like apologizing for our 
ravenous appetites, but our hostess waves away 
our words. “ It is the keen Russian air,” she 
says. As we rise from the table, Ivan and Chris- 
tine come forward and kiss their mother’s hand, 
turning shyly to kiss ours also. It is a pleasing 
custom, as old as the land itself. 

The house is a low, rambling timbered affair. 
It is so very warm indoors that we are glad to 
get out on one of the wide balconies. Here the 
grandmother, a stately, white-haired old lady, 
talks delightfully of this and that in the very best 
of French. In her young days French was the 
court language, and she and her younger brothers 
and sisters were punished if they dared speak in 
anything so vulgar as Russian. It was the 
tongue of serfs and servants. But not so Ivan 
and Christine ! They rattle away in French, 
Russian, or broken English, as suits their fancy. 
Occasionally their governess, or one of their 
grown-up sisters, gently corrects their mistakes in 
the latter tongue. 

There are five of these grown-up sisters : Catha- 
rine, Marie, Nedra, Neltje, and Volga. They are 
dressed exactly alike, in blue cotton dresses, with 
white linen caps and sleeves. We wonder why. 


202 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


Christine tells us that it is a uniform recognized 
by the government, and means that the girls hold 
diplomas from one of the schools giving very 
thorough training in home arts. How surprised 
we are 1 Subjects of this kind are just beginning 
to receive attention in our schools. 

Though it is past ten o’clock, the sky is still 
ablaze with the rich gold and crimson of the 
Russian sunset. Grandmother notes our look of 
admiration and wonder, and says that the beauti- 
ful shades scarcely have time to fade altogether 
away before their glories are paled by the glow 
of the sunrise. 

All around us are the strange, weird cries of 
night birds ; while bats flutter to and fro across 
the balcony. We wish the clammy creatures 
would not come quite so close ! Presently the 
swifts and swallows leave their wild games of tag, 
and the screaming night-jars take their places. 
They seem to vie with the bats in seeing how 
close they can come to us I What a jarring, 
booming racket they make ! It is as though all 
the spinning wheels in the neighborhood had sud- 
denly been set in motion. 

Suddenly Ivan gives a loud yawn, and quickly 
crosses himself to keep the devil from entering. 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 


203 


It is the custom among all the Russians. A 
servant comes with a samovar^ and hands round 
the tea and an odd-shaped basket filled with 
delicious candied fruit. A little later, we are 
shown to our rooms, and are glad indeed to 
learn that we are to sleep in beds very like those 
in our own home. Scarcely have we closed our 
eyes, however, when a loud, unearthly whistle 
startles us almost into screaming. We are sure 
there is a fire, and begin to scramble hastily into 
our clothes. But there seems to be no confusion 
about the house, and presently we get back into 
bed, only to be roused up again just as we have 
our nerves composed and are dropping to sleep ! 
In the morning we learn, what we then began to 
suspect^ it was the watchman on his rounds. He 
sounds his whistle every hour to let his master 
and mistress know that he is on the job and that 
all is well I 

We are up betimes in the morning and have 
just begun to dress, when a servant throws us 
into confusion by hurrying across our room, as 
a short cut to the corridor beyond. To be sure, 
she pays no attention to us, but why haven^t the 
Zamarkroffs trained her better? We ask this 
question many times during our short stay. For 


204 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

never are we sure of any privacy. There are two 
doors opening into our room, and as neither one 
is provided with a lock, we are subject to sur- 
prises on all occasions. Nor does it do any good 
to show anger and remonstrate. The guilty one 
just kisses our hand, or if we are especially fussy, 
our feet, and commits the offense again, possibly 
within ten minutes. It is the same all over the 
house. They do not seem to know, or want to 
know, their place. “ They are a privileged class,” 
sighs the old grandmother, with a shrug which 
she has come to know does as much good as a 
volley. “ It takes the patience of Job to deal with 
them.” 

And we quite believe it. For at the moment, 
a sobbing, wailing girl, the very picture of the 
deepest grief, comes in and throws herself at the 
old Dame’s feet, kissing them, and begging for- 
giveness for having broken a lovely hand-mirror, 
the pieces of which she presents. “ Mon Dieu ! ” 
ejaculates the old lady, and we know something 
of how she feels, for only the day before she has 
shown us the jeweled trinket as one of her most- 
prized wedding-gifts. Her eyes blaze, then fill 
with tears, and the hand which she raises to box 
the girl’s ears falls gently on her head. “ Will 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 205 

you never learn to obey, Sophie ? ” she asks sor- 
rowfully. “ How often must I tell you never, 
never to touch the things on my table ! 

“ It isn’t in her nature to do differently,” ex- 
plains the old dowager, later. “ I would send her 
away, but where could the poor thing go ? Be- 
sides she thinks she is as much a part of the 
family as the children are I ” 

This seems to be the explanation for the hosts 
of women and children which swarm the place. 
Surely not more than half of them are needed 
to keep things running! But their mothers and 
grandmothers before them lived on the estate, 
why should not they ? Their wants are few, the 
mistress has a kind heart, and so they remain. 
Few of these “lesser” servants are employed 
about the house ; however, we see them on the 
tour of investigation which we make with Chris- 
tine and Ivan. 

The dairy is the first place we go. This is a 
low, well-equipped building some distance from 
the house. Here we find Catharine and a bevy 
of helpers busy making cheese. How spotlessly 
clean everything is 1 What fresh-smelling rolls of 
golden butter 1 We quite envy the smiling Rus- 
sian maiden, so apparently happy at her tasks. 


206 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


But we know, too, that there are drawbacks ; for 
we see the bungling efforts of some of the helpers, 
and hear Catharine exclaim, “ No, no, Selma ; see; 
let me show you. . . . No, you haven’t it 

right yet! . . . Now, Selma!” And again, 

“ Wait, Maia, those things are not sterilized suffi- 
ciently ! ” How busy and alert she must be to 
keep things running smoothly ! 

“But the other girls are just as busy,” says 
Christine. And so we find them. Marie at the 
apiary, as busy as the bees themselves; Nedra 
superintending the women and children who are 
preparing the fermented cabbage and beets for 
winter use ; Neltje, in the fruit department, where 
strawberries and cherries are being converted into 
delicious-looking messes ; Volga, in the most in- 
teresting place of all — the poultry house. She is 
the “ hen-wife.” Such hosts of downy little duck 
babies ! Such awkward waddling goslings, nearly 
all head and bill ! Such bright-eyed, fluffy little 
yellow chickens ! Such cunning little turkeys ! 
The poultry house is a large building, divided 
into many sections, with an office for the hen- 
wife at one side. It is built very warm and snug ; 
for there are six or seven months of the year when 
only the geese and ducks are hardy enough to be 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 207 

let out for a few minutes of fresh air. It is warmed 
day and night by two great Russian brick stoves. 
Altogether there are so many things of interest 
here that we would like to spend the day, but 
Christine and Ivan say that we must come and 
see the staff of little Pastooks and Pastooshkas, 
And what do you imagine they are ? Little boys 
and girls who have in charge the herding of 
the turkeys, ducks, and geese. — There are others 
whose business it is to herd the cattle and pigs, 
but we do not see them until another day. — Such 
fun as the fortunate youngsters in charge of the 
ducks and geese are having ! Their scanty clothes 
hang suspended, here and there, from the willow 
trees, and you may guess where they are 1 “ It^s 

a wonder their feet do not become as webbed as 
their charges,^^ Ivan says, “ for they paddle about 
the best part of every day.^^ 

We go with our host and the children for a 
ride about the estate. We are mounted on the 
silkiest, most mettlesome steeds, and at first we 
are rather frightened, but Christine laughingly 
assures us that it is only the way of Russian 
horses, and that there is not the “ mitest ” danger. 
Soon we almost forget them in our delight of the 
pure air, the sweet scent of the hay and the flow- 


208 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


ers mingled with the odor of the pine forests, and 
the interesting sights on every hand. To begin 
with, the stable is enormous, holding feed and 
affording accommodations for about fifty horses. 
The cow stable holds more than a hundred ani- 
mals. In the very center of the barnyard is a 
big pond, shaded by great, cool-looking willows. 
Near by is a well of the old Egyptian type, with 
a wide well-sweep and a “ balancer ” in the shape 
of a bag of sand. Close to the watering-trough 
is a wooden platform, with an oak board hanging 
above it. Here the peasants gather every morn- 
ing, the bailiff calls the roll, and then pounds upon 
the board with his mallet. It resounds like a 
great drum and is the signal to go to work. In 
the evening it calls the people from the fields. 

There is a flour mill, a brewery, a blacksmith 
shop, and even a shoe shop on the estate. Men, 
women, and children are at work in the fields, 
and the machinery in use is the simplest kind. 
Few of the peasants work for wages. The land- 
lord could not afford it. He supplies the seed 
and the fertilizer, the peasants furnish the horses 
and their own home-made machinery, and in the 
fall they get their share of the harvest. Some- 
times it is little enough, but somehow it is made 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 209 

to do until summer comes again. Nowhere in 
the world do people work harder for what they 
get than in Russia. 

Christine and Ivan take us to see the peasant 
village. It is located not far from the farm build- 
ings. There is no one at home but a few old 
people, and a swarm of half-clad children, too 
young for work and too old for their mothers to 
carry to the fields. The youngsters are guarded 
by an army of dogs which are strongly suspicious 
of us. Ivan cuffs them away, and we enjoy look- 
ing around. The straw-thatched, heavy log cot- 
tages are crowded close together on either side of 
the single street. They have but three rooms — 
kitchen, sleeping-room and storeroom. The ceil- 
ing is low and black with smoke; the floor is 
the ground. There is very little furniture — a few 
stools, benches and boxes, and a table. The 
stove, like all stoves in Russia, is a huge affair 
of fire-brick reaching nearly to the ceiling. The 
lower part has a small chamber about three feet 
in length. This is filled with wood and lighted. 
The flames rush up and around through the 
numerous fire-brick passages. In about half an 
hour the fire is burned out, and the whole mass 
of fire-brick is too hot to touch with the hand. 


210 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


Then the iron door of the stove is closed to keep 
out the cold air, and for twenty-four hours this 
odd stove, which often contains two or three tons 
of fire-brick, radiates a steady heat, fully enough 
to warm two good-sized rooms. All the windows 
have double-strength, heavy storm sashes. In 
each room there is one window with a hinged 
pane. This is to let in fresh air in winter. “ We 
have to be very careful how we open doors and 
windows then,” says Ivan. *‘It is so terribly cold. 
If one of these panes is left open for five minutes, 
all the furniture and the walls will glisten with 
frost.” 

The lands which the peasants themselves own 
stretch out like ribbons here and there across the 
estate. “You can easily make them out,” Chris- 
tine tells us. “ See ! Each is planted with the 
things the peasant family most needs — potatoes, 
cabbages, rye, and as much flax as they can 
squeeze in. These, added to what they are able 
to make by working for father, supply their few 
wants.” 

We go with the Zamarkroffs to call on some 
“ neighbors,” forty or fifty miles away. The 
country roads are but little more than sand 
tracks, and we have to ford most of the streams. 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 21 1 


But we are on horseback, and so do not mind. 
At almost every turn in the road we come upon 
shrines for prayer. Our Russian friends cross 
themselves in passing. Here and there we find a 
little building all balls and domes and cupolas. 
The roof and the main body of the walls are 
usually painted in bright hues of green or blue. 
It is a Russian church. Behind the church is a 
forest of wooden crosses, most of them unpainted 
and blackened with age, marking “ God’s acre.” 
Near by is the home of the priest, a long, low 
dwelling, with thatched roof and whitewashed 
walls. 

We accept an invitation to take tea with one of 
these priests, — an old gray-bearded, long-haired, 
kindly man, clad in a long violet surplice, with the 
odd round head-gear of his order. Poor fellow, he 
seems so glad to have us, and from his talk we 
learn just how lonely he and his family are. For, 
in Russia, the priest is a marked man. Somehow 
he has become linked with bad luck. The people 
think him capable of bringing evil upon them. 
When he is called in to bless the founding of a 
new home, as is the beautiful Russian custom, the 
people stand with their hands behind them and 
their fingers crossed I In case he should be evilly 


212 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


disposed, no harm can, then, descend upon the 
house. In some parts of the country, to come sud- 
denly upon a priest is as unlucky as to meet a 
crow, or a raven, or an undertaker in his funeral 
garb. 

Ivan and Christine beg us to stay until winter 
comes. “ It is jolly then,’^ says Ivan. “ When it 
gets down to twenty-five below, the boards snap 
and crack in the frost and you wake from your 
sleep with your hair on end, feeling sure that at 
least a dozen German howitzers are close at hand I 
It is great fun, too, to dash over the country in 
sledges ; and if you do happen to upset, it hurts 
no more than a tumble into a big feather bed. 
We have sport hunting hares and wolves. And 
then there is the ordinary work at home — butch- 
ering, spinning and weaving. You would like 
making baskets of birch bark. We have to have 
oceans of them to market the dried fruit in, and 
we always get them ready in winter, when time is 
slack. Do stay I ” 

We are certainly tempted, especially when Chris- 
tine brings out samples of the priceless linen which 
her mother and sisters weave, and says that they 
will gladly teach us the art. ‘'You can go up to 
Moscow with us,’^ Ivan adds, as a further induce- 


THE ZAMARKROFF FAMILY 


213 


ment. “ Lots of our peasant friends here will go, 
too. They get work in the shops. They have to 
in order to get money to pay their taxes and so 
keep their lands from the crown. We shall make 
up quite a party 1 ” But we note discouragement 
in the tail of our host’s eye. He does not want us 
for city guests. He thinks perhaps we may tell 
some one how he has spent the summer. The 
Russian country gentleman, in his winter home in 
town, is fond of pretending that he doesn’t know 
anything at all about the country ! He is ashamed 
of being a farmer, and he tries to keep his friends 
from knowing that he is one. Not for the world 
would we betray our jolly host I So we thank the 
family for a most enjoyable time, and hasten to 
get away before the Frost King swoops down in 
his might. 


Emanuel, a Son of Spain 

Emanuel is a small dusky-eyed, swarthy- 
skinned lad, with flashing teeth, and a beaming 
smile. His father owns an olive plantation, just a 
few miles from Madrid, the capital of Spain. 
Their house is a low rambling affair of stone, cov- 
ered with stucco, and roofed with tile. 

We arrive just in time for dinner, and never did 
puchero, fish croquettes, fruit, coffee and cheese 
taste so good. Puchero is a combination of meat 
and vegetables, with plenty of soup — a real old- 
fashioned boiled dinner. The soup is served first, 
then the meat and vegetables. Emanuel’s father 
and mother and his grandmother, the old Senora, 
cannot do enough for us. They assure us repeat- 
edly that the house and everything it contains, 
even the hacienda (the estate), is ours, and we have 
but to express our wishes I 

Emanuel delightedly shows us all over the place. 
What hosts of bird houses he has put up 1 They 
are for the martlets — the only bird in Spain sure 
at all times of welcome and safety. The Span- 
214 


EMANUEL, A SON OF SPAIN 215 

iards say that this bird hovered near the cross of 
our Saviour and plucked the thorns from the 
crown on His brow. 

All about stretches the groves of olive trees. 
They are knotty, gnarly trees, not unlike our com- 
mon plum trees, but with darker leaves. They 
bear at the age of two years, and the tree is so 
long-lived that it is a common saying in Spain ; 
“ If you would have prosperity for your children 
and your children’s children, plant olive trees.” 
Everywhere men are shaking off the glossy purple 
fruit. Barefooted women and girls, with handker- 
chiefs knotted loosely over their heads, are gath- 
ering it into baskets. Boys are loading baskets 
and two-bushel sacks on the backs of donkeys and 
driving them off to mill. These faithful little 
beasts wear neither halter nor bridle, but go as the 
voice of their driver and his long prod, with a nail 
in the end of it, direct. 

The mill is merely a stone trough, with a heavy 
wheel, dragged back and forth through it by 
another one of the much-used donkeys. The pulp 
is watered slightly and placed on straw mats in 
the simplest kind of a press. The olive oil rises 
to the top of the water and is skimmed off, only 
the heaviest being used for food. The balance is 


2i6 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 


used for burning. The pulp makes excellent hog 
feed. Emanuel says the olive is cream and butter 
to the Spaniards. Often it is meat, too. If a 
Spaniard has a journey to make, he takes along a 
bag of olives and munches them as he rides. In 
one part of the orchard, the pickers are gathering 
green olives. These are to be salted. Some of 
them will be stuffed and pickled. 

Senor Carlos gives his orchards the best culti- 
vation — that is best according to his lights. None 
of the Spaniards know how to farm. Their plough 
is a rough piece of wood tipped with iron. It 
merely scratches the soil. The farmers in the 
country round about the hacienda raise wheat, 
barley, corn, and rye. They live mostly in the 
village below and go back and forth to their work 
on donkeys. Often we meet one of these little 
animals so laden that he looks like a walking 
straw-stack ; again there is one hidden beneath a 
mountain of grain bags. Sometimes there is a 
whole drove of them carrying home the harvest, 
driven by a rosy-cheeked lad, whistling along 
often far in the rear. We see many flocks of the 
heavy-fleeced merino sheep, with their quaintly- 
dressed shepherds and trusty dogs. 

Emanuel is very proud of his native land, and 


EMANUEL, A SON OF SPAIN 


217 


indeed he has every right to be. It is different 
from all other lands. Such wondrous sunshine 
and azure skies ! Such magnificent mountain 
scenery I Such wealth of bloom in orchard and 
field I Never have we seen finer fruits and vege- 
tables than are grown here. 

“You must come with me to Madrid,” says 
Emanuel. “We have the most beautiful royal 
palace in all the world. There is a grand stair- 
case, fashioned of black and white marble, and so 
broad that twenty men abreast could easily climb 
it. The throne room is a wondrous place, with 
mosaic marbled floor, and richly gilded ceiling 
hung with huge chandeliers of rock-crystal. The 
walls are lined with mirrors set in costly marble, 
and everywhere are the most exquisite vases and 
beautiful statuary.” 

But it is the armory and the naval museum 
which most interest us. How our heart leaps and 
then stands still as we pause in the door of the 
armory I Straight toward us charges an army of 
cavalry, like a legion of specters, clad in armor, 
with swords in their hands. At first we almost 
think them real flesh and blood. It is an army of 
kings, dukes, and famous men of Spain. We 
recognize Columbus, King Ferdinand, the cruel, 


‘2i8 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 


iron-handed Philip II, and others. All about on 
the walls are helmets, swords, tournament lances, 
bows, guns, and immense muskets. From the 
ceiling hang the banners of all the armies of the 
world and trophies of war since Time began. 
Everywhere are marvelous works of art, statuary, 
and immortal names emblazed in brilliancy. 
Never have we seen anything so marvelous! We 
run here and there studying the scenes from 
mythology and history, worked out in silver and 
bronze, and mounted upon pedestals. There are 
pieces of armor and coats of mail from every race 
and clan, spurs, saddles, gilded stirrups, historical 
drums and sashes, daggers, and a collection of 
swords fierce and ugly enough to strike terror to 
all hearts. 

In the museum is a room called the cabinet of 
the discoverers. It is the world of the fifteenth 
century. We roam about, growing more and 
more amazed, and finally pinch ourselves to make 
sure that we are awake. Here are trophies of 
every sort, gathered when Spain led the world in 
discovery and exploration. There are shields 
covered with the skins of wild beasts, javelins of 
cane with plumed notches, wooden sabers orna- 
mented with manes and long bunches of hair, 


EMANUEL, A SON OF SPAIN 219 

enormous clubs, great swords fashioned like a 
saw, clothing made of monkey skin, etc. Chief 
of all, there is a great picture of the ships of 
Columbus — the NinUy the PintUy and the Santa 
Mariay at the moment when American soil is 
sighted, with the sailors crowding the deck, and 
waving their arms in salute to the new world, 
even as they gave thanks to God. How clearly 
is shown the joy and relief of those storm-tossed 
mariners I We realize, as never before, how 
thankful must have been the heart of him who 
held to his fixed purpose “ Sail on I Sail on and 
on I ” in spite of jeers and wails and threats. 

Out in the streets once more, we see, as in a 
dream, dark, rosy-faced beautiful women and 
little girls, in black velvet gowns, with lace 
mantillas over their heads. Here and there are 
Spanish gentlemen in short jackets and knee- 
breeches, with gay stockings and sandals ; yon- 
der are peasant girls in long-tasseled caps, short 
black velvet gowns, and bright colored shawls, 
with gaiters laced to the knee, or with stockings 
bound with criss-crossed ribbons. Here are peas- 
ant men wrapped in gay blankets ; bull-fighters in 
bright costumes and the widest sombreros ; monks 
with their three-cornered hats and long black 


220 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


robes. Around the walls men and boys smoke 
and sleep in the sun. Everywhere are beggars 
with outstretched hands. We can hardly get rid 
of them. They seem to think Americans are 
made of money. 

We pause in the shops only long enough to 
buy a Spanish charm against the Evil Eye. It 
is a tiny stag horn, tipped with silver, with a cord 
for hanging it round the neck woven from the 
hair of a black mare’s tail. Emanuel says that 
it is a wonderful talisman I No doubt we shall 
find it so. 

In the Prado, which is “ the open-air drawing- 
room ” of fashionable Madrid, we come upon a 
festival for the children. The street is lined with 
happy little folks, the gay scarfs and ribbons and 
black velvet dresses of the little girls, and the 
bright-colored sashes and turbans and the slashed 
black velvet jackets and knee-breeches of the 
little boys, forming a striking contrast. Never 
in all our lives have we seen such a bunch of 
gay stockings ! All the colors of the rainbow 
and many shades between twinkle here and yon- 
der. Occasionally we glimpse an urchin too poor 
to afford the glorious stockings. He has his legs 
wound and criss-crossed with strands of bright 


EMANUEL, A SON OF SPAIN 221 


rags. Every now and then a child runs up to us 
and holds out a hand, smilingly beseeching a 
small coin. Emanuel says that it is one of the 
valued privileges of this day of days. Certainly 
all about us the coins are being passed out most 
liberally I We notice several little girls with 
whole fists full. They will buy dolls, toys, and 
sweets, and you may be sure they will not soon 
forget the festival for the children. 


Two Little Friends in the Orient 

Maritza and Karasu live in Bagdad. It is a 
wonderful old city of towers and minarets, far 
away to the East, in the realm of the Turks. 
This land is the old home of Adam and Eve, and 
here nearly all the tales described in the Bible 
took place. Indeed, we rub our eyes and slyly 
pinch ourselves, as we take our first view of the 
city. We seem to have stepped right into a pic- 
ture of Old Testament times. All about us are 
long-bearded men in quaint flowing robes, bright 
colored turbans, and sandals. Veiled women 
walk up from the river’s edge, with carefully 
balanced water jars on their shoulders — the same 
kind of jars we have seen countless times in 
Bible pictures. Farther on are the bazaars, ex- 
actly like those of Centuries ago, and managed 
by just such a class of rascally, wheedling, cheat- 
ing brown men as Christ drove from the temple. 

The shopping streets are tunnel-like alleys, 
bricked over to keep out the heat. The stores 
are mere stalls, no larger than telephone booths. 


222 



(!?is 


© Underwood and Underwood 


VILLAGE SCHOOL IN PALESTINE 









FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


223 


The “ merchant ” sits cross-legged, with his goods 
piled high about him. Here on this street are 
shops with the most beautiful pottery ; around 
the corner are booths of rare old Oriental rugs ; 
the shops in the next square sell nothing but 
turbans ; beyond are “ abba ” (robe) stalls. Only 
one kind of article for sale at a shop I Or, in- 
deed, only one kind of article to be had in a 
whole block ! What would these people think of 
our large department stores? We are glad we 
do not have to shop in this land. 

Where are the grocery stores ? Our little 
friends lead us to the public square, and we 
stuff our fingers in our ears to keep from being 
deafened. Such a multitude of gabbling, shout- 
ing venders I And such things as they have to 
sell 1 Toasted pumpkin seeds, baked gourds, 
manna, pomegranates, citrons, juice of dates, 
wine, goat sausage, piles and stacks of cucum- 
bers,^ tomato sauce, dried figs and dates, cheese, 
etc. Here comes a butcher. He has a yoke 
across his neck, and from either side of it hangs 
a freshly killed sheep. A little farther on is a 
man with some fresh beef. Here is a coop of 

1 Cucumbers form one of the principal articles of diet among the 
laboring classes. 


224 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

live chickens. We do not see any pork. The 
people of the East do not eat it. 

“ Oh, look I ” cries Maritza. “ Let us go to the 
show I ” 

“Where?” we ask, gazing about rather va- 
cantly. To our minds, the scene before us is 
quite “ show ” enough. 

“ Yonder,” explains Karasu happily, dancing 
first on one foot then on the other. “ The boy 
with the bagpipe is leading the way. Doubtless 
the show is just around the corner ! ” 

A motley crowd of youngsters the lad has 
“ drummed up ” ! They follow along after him 
shrinking and laughing, and fishing eagerly in 
their pockets for elusive pennies I Such a hea- 
thenish, unearthly racket as he makes I As he 
comes nearer, we find his bagpipe by far the 
queerest looking musical instrument we have ever 
seen. It is an inflated sheepskin, fitted with a 
mouthpiece and a section of reed pipe. The 
player holds the skin against his chest, and 
moves his fingers quickly over the holes. We 
wonder just what kind of a show it is that has 
him for an advance agent I But there is no de- 
nying our little friends, and presently we are 
standing in a dim stall watching a fakir pull 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


225 

live toads from turbans and roll chickens into 
snakes. 

Out in the street again, we meet a lad selling 
candy. His “ shop ” is a sort of little counter, 
arranged on a stool, with oddly balanced “pan 
scales hanging from either side. If business is 
not good, he can pick up his shop and go some- 
where else. But if he wants to keep out of a 
fight, Karasu says he must be careful not to get 
into a section claimed by some other candy 
“ merchant.” Here comes a roast-pea man. 
What is it he is saying? “ Umm Ennareins ! 
“Mother of Two Fires I ” He means that the 
peas have been twice roasted. The flower ven- 
der cries : “ Salih Hamatak I ” meaning “ Appease 
your mother-in-law.” A good suggestion, in- 
deed, in this land where every attention is given 
to the mother-in-law. No Turkish woman dares 
to sit down before her mother-in-law has been 
seated, or at table to help herself to food before 
the honored one has been served. If the mother- 
in-law is a member of the household, she has en- 
tire charge of affairs. 

Look over there ! How is that for a Turkish 
barber shop ? Boys, don’t you want a hair cut ? 
See how hard that little chap is trying to hold 


226 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


still, while the barber clips close about his ears I 
Surely never was there a more novel shop I It is 
a bench, just large enough to hold ‘‘the victim,” 
a plate of lather, and a copper water heater. The 
towels are in a basket fastened to the window- 
lattice above ; the barber keeps what few tools he 
needs in his pocket. 

Here comes a giant Kurd, or “ hamal,” carry- 
ing a piano on his back I The hamals are the 
porters of this land. They do nearly all the 
fetching and carrying, our friends tell us, and so 
strong are they that one of them thinks nothing 
at all of carrying a couple of trunks on his back 
for a mile or more. They belong to a guild more 
powerful than any “ union ” of our land. Inter- 
fere with them in any way and you are mixed up 
in a strife from which the police are powerless to 
aid you. There are several branches or depart- 
ments of hamals : custom house hamals, wood- 
chopping hamals, firemen hamals, night watch 
hamals, etc. And each is supreme in his own 
territory. 

Suppose a resident in Turkey wishes to move. 
Don’t imagine that he can pack up his furniture 
and depart at his own convenience. No, sir. He 
must notify the firemen hamals of his quarter. If 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


227 


he doesn’t, they appear and take charge anyway. 
They pack up and carry the furniture to the end 
of their quarter. The firemen in the next district 
take it on to their limits, and so on until the des- 
tination is reached. If there is a fire, the firemen 
will undertake to save the building if they can ; 
if not to carry out a man’s goods for a certain 
sum. And you may be sure the price is always 
high enough I It is easy to distinguish the fire- 
men ; they go about in groups bareheaded and 
barefooted. In the daytime, they are led by a 
man swinging a brass wand ; at night the leader 
carries a big white linen lantern. 

We often hire one of the watchman hamals to 
guard our house when we go away,” says Maritza. 
“ They are very faithful. If we wish to go about 
at night, we have to carry a lighted lantern. 
Woe to the fellow who forgets ! The watchmen 
are quite sure he is out for no good purpose, if he 
goes along in the dark. At night, they beat the 
hours on the pavement with their clubs. If there 
is a fire, the whole kit and caboodle go bawling it 
at the top of their voices I ” 

Karasu says that they are sitting not far from 
the konak of Effendi Al-Harun. She means that 
her family lives near the palace of this great man 


228 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 


of wealth. The Turks always say they are sitting 
at, instead of living at, such and such a place. 
And it is literally true! You never saw such a 
nation of sitters I A Turkish woman will sit for 
hours and hours at a time, with her hands loosely 
folded in her lap, just doing nothing at all. The 
men vary the program a little. They smoke as 
they sit I 

Occasionally we meet a Turkish gentleman 
with one or more children with him. But never, 
under any circumstances, do we meet one accom- 
panied by a lady. Nor do the Turkish women 
dare leave home without the consent of their 
lord, excepting to attend the hamman, or Turkish 
bath. The bath is the Turkish lady’s club, where 
she meets her friends, is introduced to new ac- 
quaintances, and hears all the news of the day. 

The furniture in the home of our Turkish 
friends is made up chiefly of hard divans, 
cushions, and straight-backed European chairs, 
standing stiffly against the wall. One or two 
walnut tray-stools, or coffee-tables, inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl, are usually placed near the 
divans to hold ash-trays, matches, and other 
trifles. There are no beds. The bedding is kept 
in cupboards built in the wall. When bedtime 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


229 


arrives the servants come in and make up beds 
on the floor. Instead of a bath room, there is a 
small closet with a hole in the floor for the water 
to escape through. If a Turk wishes to wash his 
hands and face, a slave brings the ewer and basin 
and pours on water ; for these people object to 
washing in anything but running water. 

We find it hard to get used to going without 
our breakfast. This meal is not served in Turkey. 
The elders have coffee and cigars. The children 
are given a few coppers to buy something of 
the street venders. Sometimes they get fruit or 
candy, again they have fancy bread or little 
cakes. The bread-man’s “ cart ” is a donkey 
with huge baskets on either side. Early in the 
morning the baskets are heaped into a pyramid 
over the animal’s back, so that little but his 
stubby legs and head can be seen. 

The Turkish dinner is a grand affair of many 
courses. Favorite dishes are : vegetables stuffed 
with rice, minced meat and heavy seasoning, and 
cooked in oil ; lamb stuffed with rice and deco- 
rated with pine kernels and currants ; meat 
broiled on skewers and served with batter pud- 
ding ; macaroni, with tomato sauce and cheese. 
Watermelon and fruit preserves are nibbled at 


230 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

between courses. Before the meal is begun serv- 
ants approach and pour water over the hands 
from odd-shaped brass jugs ; others hold basins 
to catch it as it falls ; others offer embroidered 
towels, which are kept as napkins. 

The homes of the rich are running over with 
servants, rank upon rank, and like the hamals, 
each will do his own work and no other. In the 
kitchen there is always an old woman whose sole 
business i$ to fan the several small charcoal fires 
with a turkey wing ! In the reception room is 
another who is ready at a moment’s notice to brew 
a cup of coffee. It takes as many servants as 
there are guests to serve coffee at a dinner party. 
They enter and stand in a row at the lower end of 
the room, with arms crossed on their breasts in 
the attitude of respect. The head waiter passes 
to the center of the room with the handsomely 
appointed coffee service. One by one the at- 
tendants advance, pour a cup of the beverage, 
and pass it on a silver holder, after which they 
return to their former position to wait until they 
are required to take the empty cup. 

“ Here comes a party of ‘ viewers,’ ” laughs 
Maritza, in one of our walks. “ Let us watch 
where they go ! ” Then, seeing that we do not 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


231 


understand, she explains hurriedly: “It is a 
mother, two of her relatives, and a professional 
matchmaker. They are going to choose a wife 
for the lady’s son. They have made out a list of 
young ladies, and are going to call on each in 
turn.” 

A portress admits the veiled figures at the door 
of an imposing house just a few paces from us. 

“ You know,” says Karasu, “ it doesn’t matter 
whether these people know one another or not. 
As soon as the hostess is told of the visitors’ 
errand, she makes haste to welcome them, while 
her eldest daughter hurries away to her room to 
make herself beautiful. The ladies exchange no 
end of compliments, and talk of anything but the 
business in hand. Soon the daughter comes in, 
kisses the hands of the guests, and proceeds to 
serve them with coffee. She says very little, and 
after she has removed the empty cups, she salaams 
low, and retires. 

“No matter what they may really think, the 
guests shower the mother with compliments of 
her daughter. Then the chief viewer tells her 
son’s virtues, what dower he will settle on his 
bride and the sum he is willing to pay her parents. 
She also asks the girl’s age and whether she has 


232 BOYS AND GIRLS OF MANY LANDS 

any fortune. Finally she rises to leave, saying : 
‘ If it is their Kismet, they may become better 
acquainted.^ ” 

When all on the list have been seen, the 
mother carefully describes those she likes best 
to her husband and son. They weigh the mat- 
ter for a few days, and finally choose the one 
they think best suited for the honor I The match- 
maker notifies the fortunate young lady’s mother, 
and then, if all the business terms can be arranged 
satisfactorily, there is a grand wedding. Usually 
the young man does not see his bride’s face till 
after the marriage. 

Maritza and Karasu have a married sister. A 
little babe has just come to Calipha’s home, and 
the girls are delighted. They are weaving gar- 
lands, making sweets, and dipping into all sorts 
of preparations. For the little one is three days 
old on the morrow, and there is to be a grand 
welcome for it. Professional “ bringers of tidings ” 
have gone all over the city bearing a bottle of 
sherbet and a note of invitation to each of Cali- 
pha’s friends saying that she is keeping open 
house in honor of her first-born babe. 

** It is a horrid, nasty little thing ! ” says Maritza, 
in a tone of great disgust. But we know she 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


233 


doesnT really think so. No one praises babies in 
Turkey. It might call the wrath of the Evil Eye 
down upon them 1 

Such a happy occasion as the welcoming proves 
to be ! Parties of guests arrive from every direc- 
tion. They are preceded by servants carrying 
baskets of sweets, decorated with flowers, and 
tied with bits of gauze and ribbon. We enter 
with a gay group, and after leaving our wraps in 
an anteroom, go at once to the state bedcham- 
ber, where the proud mother awaits us with 
glad, happy eyes. ‘‘ Marshallah ! Long-lived and 
happy may it be 1 ” we exclaim, following the ex- 
ample of those before us, and Calipha kisses our 
hands. No further mention is made of the baby. 
At length, however, the father’s grandmother ar- 
rives. The baby is her first great-grandson, and 
of course she is eager to see it. She pretends to 
spit at it, and then takes it up. 

“ The dirty, cross-eyed little beast ! ” she says 
scornfully. The remark does not deceive any 
one present, but, no doubt, the Evil Eye is fairly 
well fooled ! 

After a few minutes we go down to the gor 
geously decorated dining-room, where we are 
served with a hearty luncheon. Bands of hidden 


234 boys and girls OF MANY LANDS 

musicians play soft, weird music, and everywhere 
is gayety and merriment. In a room adjoining 
are many people who have called to wish the 
little one well. These have not received invita- 
tions, and so only light refreshments are served to 
them. 

On our way home we meet a gay procession, 
with a little boy, riding a beautiful, richly-decked 
horse, as the center of honor. “ It is little Raschid 
Al-Zaliph,” cries Karasu. “ He must be ready to 
begin school. See, those are teachers marching 
backward in front of him. They are inviting him 
to the pleasant path of knowledge 1 ” 

How gayly the little fellow is decorated I His 
little fez (turban) is almost hidden with pearl 
tassels, strings of gold coins, pendants and what 
not. These are worn as charms against the Evil 
Eye. His suit is of the gayest, richest material. 
On his neck and arms, and fastened elsewhere 
about on his person, are all the jewels his parents 
own or could borrow. Just behind him a little 
lad carries a copy of the Koran (the Moham- 
medan Bible) on a silken cushion. Another bears 
a folding book-stand of walnut wood, inlaid with 
pearl. A third has a writing-case of velvet, em- 
broidered with stars and crescents. Behind these 


FRIENDS IN THE ORIENT 


235 


come the rest of the school children. They are 
chanting verses which set forth the pleasures of 
knowledge, the virtue in loving one’s neighbors, 
and in reverencing parents and teachers. Occa- 
sionally the chants refer to the glorification of the 
Sultan, and all the bystanders join in the chorus. 

“When the procession gets back to Raschid’s 
home,” says Maritza, “ his father will give cop- 
pers to all the children, and to the poor who 
gather at the gate.” 






























